


Brass, Aluminum, Steel

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Bullying, Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pining, Slow Burn, no sad ending, switching POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 130,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: Jaemin looked at the paraphernalia around him—the colors and flags and tapes and buckets and shelves with equipment—and swallowed the pain of the only excuse he could think of, which just so happened to be the truth.





	1. Jaemin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IvyPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyPrincess/gifts).
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you start, please check the tags for anything that may trigger you! Always consider your comfort and safety first.

Jaemin almost jumped out of his skin when the door to the storage room opened. “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m not,” Jaemin denied on impulse and bit down on a flush of confusion at himself for giving such an idiotic response. “I’m—uh. I’m not doing anything. Jino, right?”

The color guard blinked at him, bare fingertips unstrapping his nude gloves. “It’s Jeno. What were you not doing in here, then?” Jeno nodded to the wall on his right as Jaemin opened his mouth like an empty well. “Last time I checked, the instrument lockers are on the other side of this wall.”

Jaemin looked at the paraphernalia around him—the colors and flags and tapes and buckets and shelves with equipment—and swallowed the pain of the only excuse he could think of, which just so happened to be the truth.

“My mom took my makeup palette and I have a date tonight,” Jaemin said.

The words hung between them like dead fish on hooks. Jeno’s gloves were off, now, and he was gazing at Jaemin steadily, an eyebrow raised. “Okay?”

“I was. I was looking for one in here,” Jaemin continued and looked up at the ceiling because it was hard to hold the eye contact Jeno seemed intent on maintaining, and being caught was bad enough. He didn’t seem to judge him for the makeup bit, though he hadn’t expected too much judgement from a guard member anyway. “We don’t have another show until next week and I thought I could take it and bring it back without anyone noticing.”

Jeno snorted and Jaemin glanced back down as Jeno finally moved out from the doorway. Jaemin could smell sweat and sunscreen even from Jeno’s distance at the shelves. The guard pulled the bin labelled with his name off the top rack (_Jeno Lee_), and the hem of his black workout jacket slipped up, but Jaemin wasn’t looking. Not for long, anyway. Jeno slapped his gloves in among his other guard materials and pushed the bin back, then leveled his gaze on Jaemin once again.

“First of all, the only palettes we keep in here are for shows, which usually have bright colors thatyou wouldn’t want to wear on a date anyway.” Both of his eyebrows were up, now, and he’d backed up again to lean against the metal doorjamb. “Second, you know how unsanitary it is to use other people’s makeup, right?”

Jaemin curbed another flush, just barely stomaching the assumption Jeno made. “I have my own brushes.”

“She took your palette but not your brushes?”

“Yeah.”

Jeno looked impressed in a way. “No offense to your mother, but…”

Despite the lasting fizzle of defensiveness, Jaemin had to bite down on a smile—bashing his mother was something he was comfortable with. “She probably tried,” Jaemin admitted.

To that, Jeno had nothing to add, only a hint of a smile hiding at one corner of his mouth. Instead of saying anything else, they both stood in the storage room, Jeno looking at Jaemin and Jaemin shifting his eyes to Jeno’s converse. One was yellow and the other was lilac and Jaemin thought that was kind of funny. Jaemin pulled more insistently at his sleeves, and Jeno was still, calm, undoubtably because he was the one with the upper hand.

“I have mine with me. You can borrow it if you tell me who you’re dating,” Jeno said, the silence shattering like he'd had pulled out the word-equivalent of a bazooka. “I’ll even do it for you, if you want.”

“I—” Jaemin really couldn’t hold back this particular reaction. He could feel the blush in his ears. “That’s alright I can do it myself.” The first part of the offer was the real kicker, though, and Jaemin had to swallow down the humiliation he’d choke on if he didn’t. It wasn’t that he was unable to date without makeup on—it was rather that his pride got in the way. He valued quality and he wasn’t about to let his mother prevent him from achieving the best circumstances. “His name is James.”

Jeno smiled. “Jaemin and James?”

“You know my name?” He couldn’t help but feel frustrated rather than flattered—especially since he’d botched Jeno’s name within the first five seconds of this encounter. He was good with names. He was good with people. The only people in the band he didn’t know well were the percussionists and guard, so this impression he’d undoubtably left was injurious.

“Sure. You play saxophone,” Jeno said, and crossed the room to reach his backpack in the corner. Sweat and sunscreen met Jaemin’s nose again as he passed closer than before, but also something faint like chlorine. Jaemin tried to wrench his mind out of the bitter determination to memorize every single person’s name _and_ their dogs. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s nice,” Jaemin said, accidentally curt off the cuff as he watched Jeno rummage. His backpack was blue and had a hell of a lot of buttons on it. One was a bi flag. He forced himself to continue, but in truth he didn’t know much. “He’s in my math class.”

“Last name?” He pulled a white set of headphones out and hooked them around his neck, then went back to digging.

“Boyd?”

There was a funny breath of a laugh from Jeno as he pulled out a rectangular palette and set it down on the ground. As he rearranged his things, he said, “Hope he didn’t get bullied for that one.”

Jaemin hesitated, watching as Jeno stood up with the palette back in his hands. “What?”

“James Boyd? James Bond?” Jeno smiled at him, and his eyes crescented gently, and Jaemin laughed on instinct alone because he’d never met anyone with a smile that could punch someone in the face.

“Right.” Well, now James Boyd’s name was ruined for him entirely—first and last name individually and combined.

Jeno started to gesture him out of the storage room, body a little too close until Jaemin got the message and slipped through the door. “Just ‘cuz I didn’t kick you out doesn’t mean you’re allowed in there, by the way,” Jeno reminded him, then held his palette out for Jaemin to take. “Bring it back to me sometime tomorrow, and let me know how the date went?”

Jaemin took it from his hands and breathed an exhale of relief. “Yeah, okay. Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, “Just don’t break it. They’re mostly neutrals, but there’re some actual colors in there too.” He didn’t smile at him again, but he wasn’t cold, either, and Jaemin gave a polite nod. More than not breaking it, Jaemin was determined to make sure his mother didn’t find this one. He wouldn’t know how to explain himself to the guard member. He had too many humiliating things stacked against him already.

He didn’t properly look at the palette itself until later when he’d thrown himself out of the band room (wet velvet, spoiled sweat, valve oil, brass). It was a stupidly, hilariously expensive set and Jaemin clenched his jaw in some emotion he couldn’t name. It wasn’t anxiety, but it sure wasn’t gratitude, either.

* * *

In a round of pettiness alone, Jaemin woke up at 3 in the morning to do his own makeup. It was to prove a point the guard member hadn’t even tried to impress that deeply, but he could do his shadow just fine, thanks (poking himself in the eye because his hands were shaking from terrible coffee aside).

It wasn’t the smartest move, seeing as he had to skim around his own mother to avoid her coming at him with a makeup wipe and justification for being grounded for another week, but he had a point to make, and he was dumb and gay. He didn’t need more reasons than those.

He’d been up until 11 o’clock cramming the rest of his homework into the small spaces of his sanity. The date had gone until 9:30, ended early on the grounds that James had to help his mom put his sister to bed, which was cute, but also everything preceding the excuse hadn’t been. So James didn’t get points for that one. He just got a good riddance.

Logically, Jaemin knew romance was dead, but when he’d thought about a date, he hadn’t expected it to be hanging around the basketball court between their two neighborhoods doing absolutely nothing. Jaemin knew how to play basketball, and they hadn’t even done that. Instead, at some point James had recited beetle trivia, which was objectively and sadly the only interesting thing he’d said for the entire two hours. That and the frozen yoghurt they’d gotten was cheap and chalky, and Jaemin had paid.

So Jaemin did his makeup with a bitterness of soul that only happened upon someone with a bruised ego who needed to take it out on just about anyone undeserving.

It was a lost effort, frankly, given he’d probably sweat it off in the single hour of show reps on the field, but it was the principle of the thing. Besides—one of the underclassmen noticed and complimented him, so it wasn’t really a waste.

He kept the palette with him until after school when guard sectionals were held, just managing to snag Jeno on his way out the back door of the band room.

“I have your palette,” he said, hand around Jeno’s wrist where his glove covered his skin.

Jeno glanced from Jaemin’s grip to his eyes, his own fingers clasped to the strap of his equipment bag. “I can’t really take it right now. If you want, you can hold onto it. Or you can come and watch our section and I’ll grab it after?”

From beyond the door, someone from the guard hollered Jeno’s name and he glanced toward the sound before giving a small smile.

The thing was, all Jaemin had gleaned from the grapevine was that the color guard was a little catty and a lot like a clique. The whole band was full of cliques, but the guard was a league of its own, and so for a single, weird moment, Jaemin couldn’t actually imagine himself watching them practice. He’d probably be entered into their next smear campaign or sacrificed to the drumline for their blatant, unchecked hazing.

“Uh,” he said.

“You won’t get hit by anything,” Jeno promised.

“Yeah okay,” he found himself saying, and then Jeno used the leverage of Jaemin’s hand around his wrist to pull him toward the door. And that was that.

* * *

Their color guard had three different equipment: flags, rifles, and sabers. Their flags for the current year were in shimmering blues, and even the sabers had to start off sectionals using those. In the sunlight, the cerulean flashed off the guards’ faces like the reflections off stained glass.

The snapping of cloth under the sounds of the metronome was oddly soothing to listen to, and the guard was determined to ignore that Jaemin was there at all. He sat on the asphalt in the shade and pulled out his history textbook, drowning out all the instruction and beeping and snapping until it was all white noise. He was behind on his readings because a certain someone had wasted his time. He would have gladly sold his time to someone deserving, but now he was just bitter and behind on homework.

It sucked.

* * *

It wasn’t until Jeno dropped down into a crouch next to him an hour later that he realized most of the guard was completely gone.

“We split into groups ages ago,” Jeno said, and his smile hid quietly at the corner of his mouth. “But we’re done now.” He smelled less like sweat today even after practicing for an hour, gloves off and a dark patch at his shirt’s neckline where he’d probably gone to wipe his face. “Do you want to go for some coffee with me?”

Jaemin’s mind was still muddied in history when he’d asked the question, and the conflict of topics fizzled out a war in his mind for an entire second. “For what?”

“Coffee?” Jeno smiled fully this time, eyes doing that thing again, and Jaemin couldn’t help smiling back on reflex.

“But, like. For what?” He wanted to laugh. Jeno was close enough to him that he could see a natural mole the other boy had under his eye.

Jeno shrugged and stood up, giving Jaemin more distance. “You waited for me and I feel like getting coffee. You like coffee, right?”

“I—yeah. I do,” Jaemin admitted, closing his textbook’s pages. One could say he was addicted at the ripe age of sixteen.

“I’ll pay,” Jeno said as if it weren’t an offer but a definite thing, and before Jaemin could even attempt to respond, Jeno said one more thing: “Your makeup looks good, by the way.”

Which was enough for a still-bruised ego to say yes.

* * *

They bumped into a mousy pit member on their way out the other door, and Jaemin could vaguely associate the boy with a vibraphone. Though the pit member’s name was lost on him, he knew he was in their same year, and so he wasn’t completely invisible.

The pit member’s face scrunched up on instinct at being bumped into, hands coming up to hug his arms to make himself even more narrow than he already was. There were bandaids around his fingers and smacked to the middle of his palms, fresh and new, calluses not yet broken in from the mallets, maybe.

“Sorry,” Jaemin said, because it was his body most of all that had been in the way.

“It’s fine,” said the member, voice almost pinched as he slipped by, and Jaemin fleetingly thought that maybe they'd spoken once. He’d have to pay more attention.

Jeno, upon closing the door behind them, gave him a name. “That’s Renjun.”

Bafflement bubbled up in Jaemin’s chest. “How do you know everyone’s name?”

“I don’t,” he said, hitching his backpack to a more comfortable position on his shoulder. “I just pay attention. We practice with pit all the time and he’s trying for section leader next year.”

“Oh,” Jaemin said, and looked back at the closed door as if he might see the boy through its metal. “That’s going to be difficult, right?” Almost every member of the pit seemed to have a fighting chance for leadership—they were one of the most skilled sections in the band and carried that mantel like they were martyrs.

“I doubt it,” Jeno said. “Even someone deaf would know he’s better than everyone else.”

“He had a lot of bandages—”

“Overworking himself, probably. Like we all do.” Jeno looked over at Jaemin and his face crinkled in humor, and Jaemin felt something snag in his chest. “Band’s hell, but it’s a hell we all chose.”

Jaemin let a fire crack from his tongue, unfettered in the desire to stop being overwhelmed by a color guard he’d just met. “It’s for the cute boys.”

And Jeno laughed some dorky, brief laugh, eyes crescenting again, and it wasn’t even funny. It wasn’t funny, so that reaction spoke volumes on Jeno, but mostly told a lot of things to Jaemin about himself all at once.

For one, he was very sure he would kill for that smile, and on top of that, he had no _idea_ what he was doing. Those were the two most important things—all the other ones he would ignore.

* * *

They were almost to the front gates of the high school when Jaemin’s phone went off and a froth of panic crawled up his arms like acidic fluff.

“Is that your phone?” Jeno asked, and Jaemin could forgive him for looking at his ass given the coincidental location of the ringtone.

Jaemin reached back and held the shut-off button down, refusing to even take it out of his pocket. “Not anymore.” His fingertips buzzed with the phantom vibration of his phone, speaking his horror in ways he would never admit.

Jeno hesitated for about half a step, then recovered. “How was your date?”

“Amazing,” Jaemin said, refusing to hint any sarcasm.

He heard the inhale Jeno took in. It was just a tad too loud—like he needed a lot more oxygen for his next words. Satisfaction burned and replaced the tundra in his chest. “That’s great. Think you’ll go with him again?” They turned down the sidewalk, the sun slipping against their necks and arms. The entire parking lot was filled with blue and silver. Someday, Jaemin would get a purple car. He’d never seen a purple car.

Jaemin looked at Jeno fully in the face, took in the weak expression and the small mole under his eye. “I was lying, Jeno. It sucked.”

Jeno’sgaze flinched wide, then his eyebrows furrowed, which was oddly sweet in a way. “He didn’t stand you up, did he?”

“God, I wish,” Jaemin snorted. “Did you know that there’s a beetle called a deathwatch? It slams its head into the side of the tunnels it makes in dead trees.”

There were two complete sounds of their footsteps, matched because Jaemin had started doing it unconsciously since the first year of marching band, and then Jeno burst into a laugh. It was a little breathy and a lot dorky, and Jaemin had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

* * *

Jeno finally accepted the palette only after they sat down at one of the tables in the coffee shop, hands curled around a mug of coffee so diluted with other things it was hardly coffee. Jaemin only knew how to drink pure satan, so his own was diluted only by ignorable regret.

It was the coffee shop everyone liked—the one where people could sign up for a slot whenever and play their music live. The audiences were warm and forgiving, and if they weren’t, then word would travel, and their next drink would be double the price. There was high school art up everywhere and a doodle-y chalkboard filled with the menu.

Jaemin’s parents had a coffee pot at home, so he didn’t go out for his addiction much, but this was the place he always wanted to be.

“You can keep it,” Jeno said, and freed a hand to push the palette back toward Jaemin across the tabletop. It nudged the tiny stanchion that advertised the new pink lemonade bars.

“What?” The small collection of customers started to applaud the end of the current performer, and Jaemin joined in on instinct, but continued to stare at Jeno across the way.

“She was good,” Jeno said, nodding toward the girl stepping off the stage. She’d been a verbal poet with sea foam green hair, but Jaemin really hadn’t been listening to her topic.

“Did you say I could keep it? Why?” Jaemin insisted and tried to keep a look of baffled amazement off his face when Jeno had the nerve to smile.

“You said your mom took yours,” he said, raising his mug to his lips. It was a simple cream porcelain. “So you can keep this one until you get a new one.”

Jaemin jerked his head in denial. “No, she might take this one too. It’s expensive. I can’t believe you let me borrow it in the first place.”

Jeno shrugged, downed the rest of his coffee, and stood up. Jaemin hadn’t even realized he’d been almost done with his drink—he’d barely even started his own. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, still smiling.

“Jeno—” Jaemin started in protest, but Jeno was already walking over to the counter, bringing his mug back and pulling out his wallet. He gestured to the table he’d just abandoned and pulled out enough money for the both of them. Paying. Just like he said he would.

This time, the baffled amazement won over, and when Jeno waved at him as he walked out of the shop, Jaemin’s mouth was open like an empty well, coming full circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (7/12/20 update: I created a thread to explain what [color guard](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana/status/1282403621242458112?s=20) is for those of you who might not know what Jeno's role is in marching band. If I end up making a thread for Renjun (pit) and Jaemin (winds; marching) I'll link those here as well!)
> 
> There are tags that will appear over time, I believe, so _please_ watch out for them if you plan to follow along.
> 
> Please kudo or comment if you're interested! It's nice to hear from you! ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	2. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: swearing, panic attack  
Please be careful while reading! Swearing will be common from here on out. 
> 
> Also, a lovely mutual of mine on twitter did some [wonderful sketches](https://twitter.com/yuzuzuyu1/status/1235448982798610432?s=20) for chapter one ;; I'm so so so in love. Take a gander if you would like!!

Renjun swallowed down on a hiss as the ends of his mallets pressed against the raw skin under his bandaids. It was unfair—he’d been playing for years, and yet his calluses didn’t do shit as soon as he added two hours to his practices.

“Shouldn’t you let those heal?” Sarwendah leaned over with her parted hair falling over her bare shoulders, and Renjun wanted to thrust a spare mallet through her eye socket.

“No, Sarwen,” he said, and clenched the sticks in his hands to reduce the urge through pain. “Though I’m sure you would like for me to let you catch up.”

She sneered at him, sliding her way back to the xylophone and left him back to his own devices at the marimba. It wasn’t so different from the vibes, but god if it wasn’t kicking his ass to get on his section leader’s level.

Sarwendah’s mallets hitting the xylo was grossly loud (if she was using plastics as he suspected, he’d snap them later after she’d left), but she didn’t deserve his time or effort. He also wouldn’t stoop to her level and use his metal mallets. He considered it, and that’s as low as he’d go.

* * *

“Heads up.”

And something smacked his temple.

Renjun gasped, a violent scum of fury clawing itself up his throat. Before he could think, he was picking up the stupid roll of something from the pavement and hurling it back the way it came, an achealready bruising his lungs like a dropped and bloodied plum. He couldn’t even hear whatever the person said over the rushing in his ears, but their hands were clasped around the bundle, eyes wide as he tried to breathe through the fog.

“What the _fuck_?” he garbled out before he tried to bite down on the torrent of Too Much trying to drown his logic out. The moment’s walls were crumbling around him, Renjun becoming keenly aware of the other students walking through the lawn behind him between buildings. Their chatter and nails clickingagainst their screens as the sun swept around their shadows, the way the pavilion over this area flung voices outward under its metal architecture.

“Shit, I am so sorry.” The guy (oh god, he knew him—wasn’t he in guard?) had his hands up, now, something like fear flashing in the way he took a step back, and Renjun tried to breathe.

“Why. Did you throw something at me?” Renjun managed, teeth gritted over the constant followup threat to his anger. Tears. A million times worse. He could never be a lawyer.

It took a whole second for him to register what the guard member held out for him to see. It waswhite electrical tape. His mind short-circuited. “I thought you heard me. I’m really sorry.”

“I heard you.” Renjun was honest to god choking on his words, but he couldn’t just ditch the conversation. Word travelled in band. He couldn’t be sure what would reach the director if he couldn’t keep his cool. God, what if someone saw him flip out just for that one second? It was just one second. God— “I just don’t get things, like, thrown at me.” He took a breath. “I think that’s a pretty normal experience.”

The guard looked incredibly apologetic, which was refreshing given Renjun had never found it easy to be apologetic in his life. “It’s just your hands are looking really, uh,” the guard said, polite almost, and extended the roll of tape to him again. “I thought you’d reject it if I offered it normally. You can wrap it around your fingers and palm and it’ll keep the bandaids from slipping.”

Renjun scrutinized the guy’s face. His heart rate was slowing steadily, but that meant he’d be getting the shakes soon and the urge to just assign this guy the title of “idiot” was so strikingly tempting. But he’d been trying to assign less blame lately.

He was trying.

“I don’t even know you,” Renjun said, exhaling slowly.

“Jeno Lee. I’ve known you since Freshman year.” Jeno smiled, and that shit was unreal. “Please take the tape.”

This felt weird. “No thanks,” Renjun said, ignoring the sting in his palms and fingers as he adjusted his messenger bag strap.

“I’m not afraid to throw this at you again,” Jeno said, still smiling, and a weak drizzle of anger tried to sweeten Renjun’s tongue.

“That’s pushing it,” Renjun said, and smiled back. Maybe Jeno couldn’t see the venom through the way his eyes squinted, because he didn’t take the hint.

“You can’t hurt me more than I hurt myself. Take the tape.”

Well shit.

* * *

The tape was unexpectedly useful and much better than bandaids, which usually slid off after ten minutes. It adjusted his grip somewhat, but it was better than having the material of his mallets rub against his bare skin or roll his plasters right off.

It was more annoying when he was holding a pencil. Jeno had nailed him in the face at the tail end of lunch. Most people were chill with pit practicing during then—especially during the second rotation, where there were approximately eleven people hunched over their nasty uncrustables, takis (not nasty), smartphones, and wicked tan lines. Unless, of course, you were Sarwendah, whose parents Renjun hoped divorced soon so she’d get out of his hair.

In any case, he actually tried wearing the tape during class, but it felt like his seat mate kept glancing at him. The attention was starting to prick at his lungs.

“Renjun?”

He startled so bad his pencil flipped out of his fingers and onto the floor, and then the person behind him stifled a giggle, and the teacher was looking at him with wide eyes at his unexpected reaction.

“I’m sorry—” the teacher said.

“It’s fine, I just—” he told her.

“—you look stressed I just wanted—”

“I’m fine,” he almost _hiccuped._ He knew, logically, that most people in class didn’t give a shit what he was doing and just wanted to get some good headway on their precalc, and the class wasn’t quiet enough for most of them to hear this confrontation, but he wanted the ceiling to cave in on him and knock him out. Honestly.

“Are you sure?” she said, and she looked ready to crouch near his desk, which was horrible.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, sorry. It’s just an off day.” He just barely managed to smile, and her expression went from concerned to mollified.

Thank god.

“Okay, but if you need to talk—”

“I’m really fine,” he insisted, forcing his smile brighter, and she gave a nod and left his desk to nudge another student who was loudly chatting it up with someone across the room.

Renjun sank into his chair and closed his eyes for even the briefest moment, which was perhaps a mistake, given his seat mate thought it best to lean into his space and go, “Renjun, your hands—”

He opened his eyes. “Leave me alone, Mali.”

Her look of affront did not escape him, all wide side-eyes and tucked chin that implied that his reaction was uncalled for. He resisted the urge to rub his hands over his face.

He knew he should apologize, but all he could manage to do was curl himself over his textbook and hope she wouldn’t hate him the next time they had class together.

* * *

By the time he got home, he couldn’t make himself go through the front door. His dad had painted it a pale forget-me-not blue, and there were pink hydrangeas, and his mom said she was going to make hotpot, but he couldn’t.

He took one look at the doorway with its welcome mat and the doorbell with the jingle that had permeated his memory since he was three and he turned down the street and counted one breath for every three steps. He mapped out their field show, trying to see and feel the marimba and vibes despite their absence, the rhythms, the placement. One breath per three steps. One breath. Per three.

He made it to the park bench before the panic hit, and it was too damn hot out for anyone to subject themselves to the torture of the parched park, so he burned the backs of his thighs alone and shuddered through his doubts.

Hands shaking, he pulled out his phone and got out a blurry text to Donghyuck.

**To: Full Sun**

_I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t._

Halfway across the damn country and probably eating dinner and—

His phone pinged almost instantly.

**From: Full Sun**

_Deep breaths. Need me to call?_

Renjun sucked in a breath, then a second one, and watched as his hands shook around his tear-blurred phone.

It rang before he could even think to respond and he fumbled to reject it because he was a _mess_, but then it rang again anyway and he was sobbing on a damned park bench with the empty baseball field behind him and the creaky swings and just him being a disaster and Donghyuck wouldn’t let him.

He picked up.

“Wh-what?”

_“Don’t ‘what’ me, Injunnie. What’s going on?”_

“I just.” Renjun inhaled, and his phone’s screen was already getting humid against his face and his hands were shaking so _bad_. The tears dripped down and under his chin and he let them because Donghyuck wouldn’t see him and certainly no one else was going to judge him for it. “There’s so much pressure to do well, and I know—I know my parents will accept me if I don’t get the position but everyone’s gonna just.” He tilted his head back, nose starting to run, and he wondered when he’d gotten so pathetic. “Everyone hates me, Hyuck. Everyone hates me and if I don’t get it then I’m nothing and just—”

_“I don’t hate you.”_

“I know _you_ don’t, but you’re in Michigan, which is _bullshit_ by the way.”

Donghyuck laughed, and Renjun wanted to reach through the line and drag him back to California by the throat. They were both laughing because Donghyuck’s laugh was stupid contagious, but Renjun felt absolutely disgusting.

_“Injunnie, no one gives a fuck if you fail. If they care, it’s because you care. Like—” _Renjun could hear Donghyuck inhale, then the sound of maybe a book closing. _“—I’ll care if you get passed over because that’s even more bullshit than Michigan and I know you’re working your ass off.”_

Renjun gave a hiccup of a laugh and dragged his wrist across his nose (and no one could judge him because no one could see him).

_“If anyone who doesn’t matter cares, it’s just cuz they’ve got nothing better to do than be bitter. Say that five times fast.”_

“No,” Renjun laughed.

Some silence settled between them and for the first time since he sat down, Renjun noticed the chalk art near his feet. It was of a pink whale and a blue school of fish. He shifted his feet away from the drawings.

_“Is it Sarwen?”_

“No.” Renjun sighed and sank into the bench. A headache was already accumulating in his head—the payment for tears. Even ones as brief as those. “I mean, yeah. She’s a bitch. But I can handle it.”

_“Hell yeah stick it to her.”_ Donghyuck paused and Renjun could only guess as to what he was doing. _“What is it then? Just you?”_

“Just me,” Renjun groaned. “The tech expects a lot from me, but he asked me to chill out two days ago, so.”

_“Are you getting sleep?”_

“Kinda.”

_“Get some sleep.”_

Renjun hummed and rubbed his eyes. “Get back to your homework.”

_“Bold of you to assume I was doing homework.”_

Renjun rolled his eyes, even if it hurt through the building headache to do so. “Bye, Hyuck.”

* * *

His parents didn’t bat an eye when he showed up half an hour later than he normally did. His sister did squint at him though, which meant he had to avoid eye contact so she couldn’t see any redness that would inevitably tattle on his breakdown.

It was only after dinner that anyone bugged him, and Renjun was very not surprised when it was his sister who bothered to open his door.

“Paint with me. What are you doing?”

Renjun looked up at her with something like tired mirth. “Shouldn’t you swap those two?”

She leaned against his open door and gave him a dry look.

“Fine. I’m cleaning my blisters.” And he was. He’d unpeeled the tape and bandaids from his skin to get to the red welts of pain he’d developed. He had no idea blisters could form under calluses, but they sure could and did. He’d heard alcohol or hydrogen peroxide would delay healing, so he’d just returned from the bathroom with a tube of ointment. After washing his hands, of course.

“In the middle of your bedroom?” She sounded like she was ready to throw any and all towels in, which Renjun didn’t think was fair. He shot her a look and shrugged. “Can you hold a paintbrush?” she asked.

“Probably?”

She stared at him, his body slumped in the middle of his rug at the side of his bed, surrounded by discarded tape and new bandaid wrappers. “‘Kay, well. Join me when you’re done.”

* * *

“You’ve got paint on your neck.”

“What.”

Jeno gestured to his neck as he passed, gloves already on and his bag slung over his shoulder. He leaned into the crash bar to open the door, smiling a little. “It’s orange.”

“_You’re_ orange.”

Jeno’s laugh was shut out as the door closed behind him, and Renjun wanted to smack his head into the jacked up piano near the sousaphones’ “Sousalley.” His brain wouldn’t work in the mornings despite his greater interests, so he was sure all he’d hear was a hollow thunk if he did. He was kin with the six keys the piano was missing.

Pit wasn’t required to roll their equipment out for the majority of the morning practices, so he could easily forget about calling Jeno orange (he wasn’t, for the record). That didn’t stop him from pawing at his neck to try to find the swipe of paint he hadn’t seen in the mirror that morning.

And he couldn’t ask anyone for help because—well, the entire pit didn’t properly hate him, probably, but he’d rather pull out his phone and look like an idiot than the alternative.

Which was ironic given the missing mallets at the vibes. He shuffled through the sticks available and stood there when he couldn’t find the rubber ones. Stood there with his heart slowly gaining a rhythmic traction in his chest until he could hardly think.

He turned to the xylophones and opened his mouth, then saw Sarwendah smile with saccharine sweetness at him. His teeth clacked with the force of him closing it again.

She made him not want to be section leader. She honestly did. Because if he did become section leader, which he _would_, she’d do her damnest to make his life difficult.

Like now, but worse.

And he felt less and less awful by the day for wishing ill on her.

* * *

He ended up sliding over while their tech was by the bells and snagging his mallets back. He could have stolen some of hers, too, but by now it was a game of endurance. Trying to be better and failing only in his head when he woke up to the idea of throwing her shoes into the school pond. It smelled like rotten eggs and even if she found them, she’d never go in to retrieve them. 

Instead, he had to attempt a calm reclamation of his own mallets, which was only partially successful since she managed to glance him in the face with her elbow. He neatly sidestepped her cleverly placed foot, however.

Renjun took a steadying inhale as he approached his instrument again—he couldn’t lose it in the middle of practice if only because his hands shaking was directly counterproductive. He hoped ignoring her would make her burn.

* * *

**From: Full Sun**

_Bet you won’t smile at anyone today._

**To: Full Sun**

_fu_

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Renjun didn’t bother practicing during lunch. He’d skipped breakfast and his stomach was eating a hole through his abdomen. His hands stung so bad even cracking into his tupperware was a struggle.

Assessments were in two weeks. He was angry, but he wasn’t an idiot. He needed to let his hands heal at least a little.

The lunch his mom packed, in all honesty, made him feel more sick than he felt before, but that wasn’t her fault. She was an excellent cook, and her _gaifan_ was just fine. He couldn’t find the reason why it was that for weeks at a time, eating anything at all made him feel like he was going to hurl (if he was going to, he’d do his best to aim for Sarwendah).

He sat outside in the sun because then he’d be left alone. The picnic tables should have been occupied, but the ones near the art building were often deserted in favor of students working through lunch. Plus, it was the second rotation, and whoever had set up the lunch balances did so pretty badly since first lunch was apparently packed.

Despite the reduced odds, he was singled out anyway and a boy plopped right down on the bench across from him.

“Yo,” he could barely hear over the music in his earbuds. He plucked one out, observing how the stranger propped his chin in both palms like his face was a flower. He had a light peach-tone eyeshadow on, he noticed. “I bumped into you the other day.” He had a voice that bent like it could crack any second, expressive and a little nasal.

It took Renjun a second, but he remembered. His mind was spinning weakly to come up with a reason for this interruption. “Did I drop something?” Renjun asked, hoping that was the reason and wasn’t about to get threatened over being in the way.

There was an unnatural pause and Renjun’s heart hitched in bizarre fear before the other so much as parted his lips. “Just my heart,” said this kid, this absolute fool, this utter numbskull—

Renjun’s whole face flushed red. He knew it. Everything was suddenly in hell. “What?” God. “Are you making fun of me because I’m gay?” If so, he needed to punch this guy before his hands started shaking.

The other’s face fell instantly, hands coming forward in a placating motion. “Jesus, no. I’m sorry. I’m gay too.”

“You’re hitting on me?” Renjun wheezed. A goose honked out in the quad, and Renjun thought he might be going insane.

“No!” the boy denied, and he was a little red in the face too. “I mean yes, but I’m just—I’m just flirtatious by nature. Holy shit. Can we start over?” His eyes practically pled with Renjun, but all Renjun wanted to do was hide his face in his hands and pray for someone to snipe him from the art building’s rooftop. “I’m Jaemin Na,” the boy said as Renjun stared. “I’m in band with you. I play alto sax.”

That information singlehandedly made Renjun’s mind spiral into the fifth dimension, probably, because he could no longer get his brain to work, and Jaemin just continued to babble.

“I just realized I didn’t know your name, and I’ve been terrible learning the people in percussion who are in my year and when I bumped into you I kinda realized I should say hi and introduce myself. You know? Jeno told m—”

Renjun’s brain restarted. “Jeno?”

Jaemin cocked his head, and a curious lilt of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “He’s in guard.”

“Yeah,” Renjun said, “Yeah I just met him. He threw a roll of electrical tape at my head.”

Jaemin’s eyebrows jumped, and the laugh that came out of his mouth was the most obnoxious thing Renjun had ever heard. It sounded almost fake, and that alone probably ended up making Donghyuck lose his bet. Renjun smiled before he could even feel it coming.

“What an image. Wow.” Jaemin’s chin dropped back into his hands. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Renjun said, and felt like a broken record. Jaemin smiled, though, so.

“Awesome.” Jaemin stood up and stepped out of the picnic bench’s embrace. “I gotta go, but it was nice meeting you. Is it cool if I eat lunch with you from now on?”

Renjun hesitated. “Don’t you have friends?”

Jaemin grinned. “Sure do. They won’t die, though, and they don’t have second lunch.” He wiggled his fingers in a wave. “See you.”

“Yeah,” Renjun said, fainter now, record still broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so oh my goodness—the support you guys gave for the first chapter was so wonderful. I'm so excited to continue writing for this ;; Thank you so much for the encouragement and comments.
> 
> Thank you _so_ much ;; 
> 
> I know Renjun might be kind of complicated in this au, but let me know if you like him or not? I'm curious how you guys take him.
> 
> If you want, please yell at me!! If you're not comfortable with commenting, you can reach me at [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana) or [curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1).


	3. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't yet checked the tags for this fic, I advise you to do so now. I'm not sure how to succinctly tw/cw for this chapter, but it carries undertones of the tags for the fic as a whole.

In a burst of flawed inspiration, Jaemin hid his mother’s makeup.

His parents’ bathroom was fantastically large compared to his bedroom, and every once in a while he caught himself thinking about the size difference. How somehow the size of their son’s bedroom wasn’t a deal breaker when they bought their home. It was fine. It was just a thought.

Ultimately, the biggest gripe he had was that the larger the room, the more the floors creaked, and he had to hug the walls like some possessed soul in order to not alert either parent.

The tiles were cool under his feet as he sidled along, and the room itself smelled a little like baby powder and epsom salts. He didn’t like his parents’ abode very much. His own bedroom smelled strictly of lavender and clean linen. After his first year of high school, he did his own laundry—his dad got tired of finding turf nibs everywhere and the weekly schedule no longer cut it for how much Jaemin sweat through his clothes.

The lavender detergent was his, and was specifically for his sheets. He never slept well and needed all the help he could get. That’s where the coffee came in.

His mother’s makeup drawer made a grinding, dragging sound as he pulled it, and his shoulders went up further with every second of it. They were downstairs watching reality television, but still. If his mom had the nose to probe out his palette, then she’d probably have the ears to hear him doing stupid things like commit to a petty revenge strategy.

With some care, he lifted the organizer that divided all of her makeup up out of the drawer and set it on the circle rug. He then endured another excruciating three seconds of closing that same accursed drawer.

She had her lipsticks and compacts and mascaras all in that single organizer, but he supposed her would leave her brushes and colors alone.

Two deep breaths later, then a bunch of shallower ones matched by a dozen creeping steps, he was sliding the organizer under his parents’ bed (it still smelled like baby powder). If he pushed it back far enough, she would probably struggle to find it, let alone know to look there in the first place.

From the bottom of the stairs on the lower level, he heard a creak. “I don’t hear practicing!”

Jaemin covered his mouth with a shudder of his heart, trying to muffle to the extent that his father wouldn’t be able to hear that his voice was coming from their bedroom rather than Jaemin’s own. _“I’m marking my sheet music, dad!”_

There was another creak and Jaemin scrambled almost on all fours to get out the double doors of his parents’ bedroom, his insides heaving in adrenaline. It was a lucky thing their door had been open to start with—closing it would have made his heart hop right out of his mouth.

He didn’t even have his sax out of its case, and if his dad was coming up the stairs—

“You’d better be!”

Jaemin swallowed an involuntary sound of panic as his dad’s voice got closer, hopping over the stretch of floor between the two bedrooms that groaned and crackled if you put your weight in the middle of it.

He covered his mouth again, trying not to heave his breath. _“I am, I promise!” _and slipped into his own bedroom just a moment before his dad reached the top. With a hurried lie caked into his body, he leaned back out and smiled, meeting his father’s eyes. As if he’d only just cracked open his door. His lungs screamed as he held his breath to conceal any panic. “I promise, dad.”

His dad's gaze bore into him only briefly before he nodded and disappeared back down the stairs. Jaemin still heard him say, "I should hear you in five minutes."

"Yep!" Jaemin said, and closed his door with a shudder.

He had five minutes to clear out his room so when his mom ransacked it tomorrow, she would find nothing incriminating or even a little unacceptable. His palette and brushes would remain in his backpack, which he would keep in the shower until the morning. His single crop top belonged in his pajamas drawer. It wouldn't be questioned there. 

There was so little else he was so burningly aware of, but he scoured his room nonetheless, and for that he was grateful. He found James's phone number written on a sticky note on the underside of his desk where he'd forgotten about it.

He drenched it in water, then tore it to soggy shreds.

* * *

That morning was the fastest he'd ever gotten out of the house, intact bag slung over his shoulder and saxophone hugged in his grip. He'd left faster than the coffee had been able to brew, and he was early enough to detour in the completely opposite direction just to obtain an americano with the money he'd made around the neighborhood—babysitting, feeding pets, folding laundry. He knew most parents gave an allowance, but he'd stopped getting that when he'd reached twelve years old.

He didn't have a problem with it. Not really. It gave him one less chain.

* * *

He left his phone in his instrument locker—not turned off, since then he would inevitably stare hell in the face when he got home if he did that—and ignored the missed calls completely when he returned.

Margot whistled when he pulled off his shirt to change into a fresh one, just the two of them in the instruments room, but it died on her lips when his skin showed. He let it die. She avoided eye contact. 

* * *

When lunch rolled around, he called back.

"Mom?" he said, as if he didn't already _know_.

_"Where's my makeup?"_

He exhaled, pushing the breath between his teeth gently so it didn't carry over the phone. He pulled out his backpack to fish around for his chem notes. "Your makeup?"

_"Yes, Jaemin. My makeup."_

A dozen of the responses he'd thought up in the middle of their drill crowded into his head all at once, but he picked the most inconspicuous. "What happened to it?"

_"That's what I'm asking _you_."_

"Mom, I don't—I don't know what you're asking." His fingertips were buzzing as he straightened up. He pressed his forehead against his locker.

_"My organizer is gone from my drawer. What did you do with it?"_

"I—what?"

_"Jaemin."_

"I haven't been in your bathroom in ages. I don't—"

_"I know it was you!”_ Her voice was rising over the speaker. He simply tried to breathe as he adjusted his forehead to settle against a part of the locker his skin hadn't warmed yet.

"Mom, I'll help you find it when I get home. I'm not sure—"

_"I need it!"_

Something in him strained. "You don't need makeup, mom! You're pretty enough!"

_"Where is it?"_

"I don't know!" He was trying not to yell. He was in a public space. His blood pounded.

_"Don't pretend like you're an idiot! You did this to me because I got rid of yours! Don't be a brat!"_

His eyes shuddered open, flicking toward the band room door. A mousy pit member was waiting for him, he hoped. "Mom, I gotta go." His throat was tight.

_"Don't you dare—"_

He hung up.

* * *

Renjun's eyes were wide when he sat down, but he plucked out an earbud just like before. 

"You look disappointed," Jaemin said, which wasn't actually true. Renjun mostly looked surprised. Maybe agitated. But Jaemin needed affirmation and he'd shamelessly fish for it.

"I'm not," Renjun said immediately, and Jaemin grinned. "I mean I'm not excited either. Don't. Don't get the wrong idea."

Jaemin forced his expression into something solemn for the sake of humoring his new lunch partner, then set his notebook on the table.

Renjun looked like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it.

Jaemin let it go.

* * *

The look he got from Jeno was one he tried not to latch onto, but he thought it was something he could be proud of. “Your makeup looks really nice,” Jeno said, smiling a little.

They were just outside the band room, Jeno’s feet firmly planted in the muddy patch of grass inside the gates. He had his saber in hand and was doing spins Jaemin didn’t know the names of. So long as they were talking, Jeno wouldn’t do any tosses, which Jaemin supposed was him just being polite. It was a nice thought.

“Thank you,” Jaemin said. “I need to keep your palette in my locker from now on, by the way.”

“Brushes too?”

Jaemin nodded.

This time, Jeno did toss. Jaemin tried to count the spins but found he wouldn’t know what was impressive even if he did. His catch was firm. “Do I have permission to access your locker?” Jeno asked and smiled as Jaemin laughed.

“The way you said that. What are you? A lawyer?” 

Jeno was still smiling and just shook his head in the negative.

“You can,” Jaemin said, backing up to lean against the wall that encased the drama room. “No touching my brushes, though.”

In a move that Jaemin could only explain as goofy, Jeno saluted with the taped blade of his saber, then pretended to have cut himself as if he weren’t perfectly competent with his equipment of choice. “Oh god, I’m dying.”

“I’m leaving,” Jaemin snorted, trying not to laugh as Jeno held his forehead and fell to his knees. Jaemin still didn’t move, though, which allowed him to see the glimmer in the squint Jeno’s eyes.

“You’re not leaving,” Jeno stage whispered, and something scrunched oddly in Jaemin’s chest. Not a great sign.

“Do you want me to?”

Jeno, again, shook his head, and though Jaemin had expected that answer, he still felt relieved. Unfortunately, Jeno was still looking when Jaemin’s text tone made him flinch. Fortunately, while he definitely saw, he didn’t say anything. 

Jaemin fished his phone out of his back pocket and settled himself into a sit against the drama wall.

**From: Mark oppa**

_w r u_

A sigh built up through Jaemin’s entire body and he could afford to smile again.

**To: Mark oppa**

_outside the drama room!! -u-_

“Jeno.”

There was a smacking sound as Jeno caught a toss. “Jaemin.”

Jaemin wasn’t sure what to make of how comfortable it felt to be around Jeno already to the point that he could make him smile every second exchanged word. He pushed onward. “Do you know Mark?”

For the briefest moment, Jeno seemed to hesitate, but maybe he was just rearranging his hands around his saber. “He played flute until last year.”

Jaemin had to forcefully keep his jaw from dropping. “You said you didn’t know everyone.”

Jeno looked reluctant this time and did a spin with the saber that was definitely more complex than the others he’d done before. Jaemin couldn’t tell if Jeno was just pulling his concentration face or whether the conversation was throwing him. “I just pay attention.”

Pulling a face because that’s what he said before, too, Jaemin continued. “He’s going to hang. Is that okay?”

“Mhm!” The next toss was particularly strong, arching up. Jeno caught it, too.

“Do you ever drop?” Jaemin asked, watching the saber twirl in arcs and slide against Jeno’s torso. He seemed to be getting into his actual routine, now, though he was still stationary.

“Yup. All the time.” He let his saber hang and stretched out his hands. “Only when I’m moving though, really. Would you drop your sax if you didn’t have the strap?”

Jaemin genuinely felt scandalized by the idea and Jeno laughed, eyes crinkling.

* * *

Jaemin didn’t expect Mark to actually go through the band room. He emerged with a pinched expression that made Jaemin laugh.

“So glad I quit. Oh my god.”

If Jaemin closed his eyes, he could remember the actual shouting match that happened in the director’s office when Mark dropped out of concert season. They’d won nationals for their division Mark’s last year in marching band, and Mark wanted to focus on AP courses for college credit. The director went ahead and had a hissy fit, which according to Jaemin’s sources, all band directors were prone to do.

He’d never seen Mark cloaked in such righteous indignity.

“I wasn’t even _good_ at flute,” Mark sighed and sank down next to Jaemin, slinging his backpack off on the side Jaemin didn’t occupy. It was only then that Mark noticed Jeno and gave a wave, not realizing that he technically walked in on their time together. Jeno’s eyebrow quirked, but he seemed unsure what to do.

“Mark,” Jaemin said, and nodded at Jeno while withholding a laugh. “This is Jeno.”

“Oh,” Mark said. “Oh, sorry.” He pushed himself back to his feet and leaned to extend a hand to Jeno, who took it politely in turn. This particular meeting felt strange, but Jaemin was sure that the sensation had something to do with the fact he wasn’t yet convinced Jeno was completely real.

Nothing the other boy had done so far seemed remotely plausible.

Well.

It wasn’t too inconceivable but Jaemin was struggling to understand how Jeno ticked. He just knew he was easy to be around.

“I’m in my last year. Jaemin’s friend,” Mark clarified, and Jeno’s face scrunched into somethingseemingly pleasant. Jaemin had known him for three days—he couldn’t say for sure.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

* * *

Jaemin endured approximately 43 texts from his mother, all of which he ignored, before he knew ignoring a single one more would get him cut wide open.

“Can you drive me home? Mark?” He had to nudge Mark’s knee, the other immersed in the darkness behind his eyelids. Mark came to with a shallow gasp and the lead of Jeno’s mechanical pencil snapped simultaneously. Jeno had sat down on Jaemin’s other side some five minutes ago to start perusing a printed history packet.

“What?” Mark said.

“I need a ride home.”

“Oh. Oh yeah, okay.” Mark tilted his neck until there was a soft pop, and then he did the other side, and he stretched his arms forward across his knees to counteract the molding his spine had taken to the brick wall. He glanced over at Jeno. “Do you need one?”

Jeno looked up, thumb frozen in its position to click new lead in. “Um.”

“It’s no problem,” Mark said, already shoving his forgotten books into his bag. 

“He’s a good driver,” Jaemin added in case that was the barrier.

Jeno’s eyes shifted between Jaemin and Mark, but he had something like a smile on. “I’m actually waiting for some friends.”

For reasons Jaemin couldn’t begin to comprehend, that excuse startled him. Like it was hard to believe Jeno had a social life. That he existed outside of Jaemin’s consciousness. That he orbited in a different solar system apart from his own. “Right,” Jaemin chirped to launch himself out of that bewildering stupor. “I’ll see you, then.”

Jeno waved them off as they began to walk away, saber balanced on the tops of his feet and textbook propped on his lap. 

* * *

As soon as they rounded the corner, Mark raised his eyebrows at Jaemin. “Just a friend?” It was a reasonable question. Jaemin hadn’t introduced him as anything but “Jeno.”

“Just a friend,” Jaemin confirmed. “I’ve known him for like…three days.”

“That’s cool. He’s good-looking for someone your age.”

Jaemin gaped and socked Mark in the bicep. “I’m right next to you!”

Mark started to laugh. “I said what I said. I’ve seen you with a tampon up your nose.”

That was something Jaemin would ignore, especially since his phone vibrated again. “Just a second.”

**To: Eomma**

_On my way! ♡~_

**From: Eomma**

_Not okay, Jaemin. Get your ass home immediately._

As if he hadn’t just texted her back, finally, saying he’d be getting home. He gritted his teeth.

**From: Eomma**

_Do you hear me?_

_Jaemin?_

**To: Eomma**

_Mark’s driving me! ^^_

Jaemin shuddered out an exhale and shut off his phone. Mark only glanced at him, hitching his backpack, knowing enough not to prod.

“No Yukhei today?” Jaemin asked, thrusting everything to the back of his mind for now and remembering to ask after their shared best friend.

Mark scoffed a laugh. “He’s with Yuqi. She dragged him to the art daycare.”

“Oh lord.” Yukhei had just recently been body slammed into a partnership in his math class for a harebrained project, and Song Yuqi had been who fate had graced him with. Out of everyone Jaemin had known, Yukhei was the least picky person ever when it came to his social life, and his heart was even more indiscriminate. 

Yuqi was _tiny _compared to him, but she’d captured him with both of her small hands and Yukhei had absolutely, totally let her.

But she also refused to kiss him until he’d dated her for two months.

For Yukhei, who pined like it was a profession but was respectful to a fault, the wait was agony. Their group chat was full of sad faces and cute snippets about her hair or funny things she’d said to him.

Neither Jaemin not Mark minded, but taking Yukhei to her workplace was probably a lapse in judgment on Yuqi’s part. The kids would love him, but the art pieces probably wouldn’t.

“I hope she takes pictures,” Jaemin added, and Mark smiled in agreement. They liked Yuqi. They liked anyone who could make Yukhei act like a puppy.

* * *

Mark’s radio buzzed with idle nonchalance, broken beyond repair two summers ago and haunted enough to turn on whenever the AC was active. Jaemin found the white noise helpful more often than not.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Mark said as they waited for the gate to Jaemin’s neighborhood to swing open.

Jaemin hummed, the exhaustion catching up to him.

“You really can’t catch a break,” Mark said, more under his breath than before.

Jaemin shrugged this time and forced himself to rummage through his backpack for the makeup wipes he’d need if he wanted to make it alive to tomorrow morning. “I’m used to it. It’s not your fault.”

“I know it’s not.” Frustration leaked into his tone, and it almost made Jaemin smile as he flipped the mirror down. “But I just—I should have picked you up or something.”

“They wanted me to practice. They would have known if I snuck out,” Jaemin said, wiping at his eyelids carefully. While Mark’s radio didn’t work, his shocks luckily _did_, and the ride was often smooth enough for Jaemin to even apply his makeup if necessary.

“You’ll text me whenever it happens?” They were a block from Jaemin’s house, but Mark pulled over early, idling his car and turning to Jaemin as he made sure every touch of color was gone.

“Well, you’ll be hearing from me very soon, then,” Jaemin said, somewhere between gentle and wry. He could see Mark’s face wrinkle in disbelief in his periphery.

“What did you do?”

Jaemin would have chuckled if his nerves weren’t catching up with him, but he just shook his head instead. “Don’t worry about it. If she doesn't take my phone, I’ll call you when she’s done with me.”

Mark made a pained noise, but shifted his car back into drive. “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you guys thought you'd be getting Jeno's POV ;] my apologies
> 
> Enter Jaemin's support group! How are you guys feeling? I tried to balance things with comfort this chapter, since the implications are...not...great. 
> 
> Again, thank you so so so much for all the support. It's late and I'm trying not to be too emotional over it haha ;;
> 
> I did NOT look over this chapter much at all. If you catch any errors, feel free to tell me! I'll look over it and edit it soon, but I just wanted to update tonight ^^
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	4. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't tag it bc it probably won't come up again, but there's some brief talk about _implied_ self harm, and it's in the negative (ie there is no self-harm occurring). Be careful if it's a trigger, please!!!

**From: Full Sun**

_What if_

_I flew to Cali for assessments_

**To: Full Sun**

_u wouldn’t_

**From: Full Sun**

_you’re challenging me bc you know I won’t turn down a challenge_

_bet_

**To: Full Sun**

_I miss you_

Renjun sank his head into his arms and tugged at his hair, dropping his phone between his knees. His hands were healing slowly, the chopping exercise they did the other day in practice not helping in the least, but the tape being a god-send. Well, a Jeno-send, as it were. Renjun had seen an underclassman copy him with one hand, then deck the rest of her sore fingers with bright green tape.

He hadn’t realized anyone was watching him. There was a small part of him that hoped he’d stop being ostracized once he got section leader, and a growing speck of an idea that he might not be ostracized at all.

Less than two weeks. Less than two weeks until assessments.

_Make a friend_, Donghyuck had prompted. _It’ll be hard to be section leader if they all think you’re a dick._

In fact, he might not get chosen at all on social grounds alone.

He pressed his fingertips to the base of his skull and sighed. When he looked up, there was an upperclassman staring right at him adjusting the strap of her bra under her shirt.

Renjun wanted to look away, but it looked like she was about to say something. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

She inhaled. Her nickname was Linnie. Keyboard. She handed out rice krispies every band camp on the first day and had known Renjun’s name within minutes. She wore a black ring on her right middle finger and had gotten purple braces last year. He’d never heard someone play piano so beautifully, and he remembered she had excused herself from last year’s winter concert when the lullaby they’d played made her cry. She had choppy brown hair that never, ever stayed in her bun. “You just used to smile a lot more.”

“When?” Renjun blurted.

Linnie shook her head and crouched down next to him, which would be patronizing if he weren’t sitting on the floor trying to stave off a mental breakdown. “Listen. I know you’re going for section leader. Please smile more. The babies are scared of you.”

The way she said it choked a laugh out of him, and she grinned in a response. “If you tell Sarwendah I said anything, I’ll throw my keyboard at you, but Renjun—” He gave a nod and pressed the heel of his palm to his temple. “—stop worrying. You’ll get section leader. She’s not kind, and while the underclassmen are scared of you, they want you to win.”

Renjun returned his head to his arms, inhaling deep, and he didn’t even flinch when he felt Linnie touch her fingertips through his hair. “I’m going to be gone next year. You’ll be good to them?”

“I’m gonna cry, Lin.”

He heard her laugh, but he trusted her enough to know it was caring.

* * *

He practiced during lunch that day, mallets quieted by the vibraphone pedal. Sarwendah had claimed one of the marimbas and he wasn’t willing to get all that close to her. On the days her eyes were puffy, she usually left him alone, but her eyes were shining today and he wasn’t going to mess with that.

It wasn’t until Jaemin passed through that he realized he’d forgotten he had a lunch partner, now, but Jaemin hardly seemed fussed. As usual, he grabbed notes from his backpack and nothing else, then made his way over to the pit section of the room.

“Are your hands better?” he asked as he sat down. He was wearing a baggy long-sleeved shirt, which Renjun thought was kind of ridiculous for how hot it was.

Renjun set aside his mallets and showed his palms.

“Yeah that doesn’t help. All I see is tape.”

A smile crept its way into Renjun’s expression and he didn’t miss the flinch of a smile returned back to him. “They’re a little better.”

Jaemin’s makeup for the day was all soft browns, hair styled out of the way of his forehead to frame the look and his eyebrows.

“You look happier today,” Jaemin said, movement paused in the middle of opening up his notes.

Renjun winced. “I’m not.”

“Oh.” The space was filled with Sarwendah’s playing, and Renjun didn’t expect Jaemin to smile so brightly. “We’re both in the same shape, then.”

* * *

Renjun caught Jaemin after school, but was caught by Jeno first.

“Oh, careful.” Jeno’s voice was so soft it startled him, catching the door before it slammed into his face and broke his nose. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

He was wearing eyeliner. Renjun’s brain couldn’t, wouldn’t, doesn’t compute that information for reasons he refused to acknowledge.

“Jeno,” Renjun said because it was all his brain supplied him, and Jeno smiled. The black made the way his eyes became crescents more prominent, and that did damage to Renjun’s liver. But his brain got back online so the sacrifice was worth it. “Thank you for the tape,” he managed, and surprise did funny things to Jeno’s face. It was as if his expressions came involuntarily.

“Of course.” He was still holding the door open, and Renjun was still standing there without his liver and all of his brain.

“I’m sorry for throwing it back at you.” It was easier to apologize than he thought it would be.

“That’s okay. I’m good at catching things.”

He just stood there, Jeno holding open the door for him, petrified for absolutely no reason.

Jaemin peeked in from outside. “Renjun!” Renjun reanimated and started breathing again, though the look Jaemin flicked between the two of them was not something Renjun was keen on. Especially since it split Jaemin’s face into a grin. “You’re in the way, Renjun,” Jaemin said, smiling so bright he hardly knew what was happening, but he let Jaemin grab him and move him out of the way for a disgruntled tuba player he hadn’t even noticed.

“I need to talk to you,” Renjun said, trying to ignore that Jeno was behind him closing the door gently.

Jaemin’s smile flickered, but didn’t die. “Sure. What’s up?”

Jeno heard, obviously, since he moved out of their proximity, unslinging his equipment bag from his back.

“Are you okay?”

His smile pinched. “Hm?”

Renjun took a steadying breath, taking a page out of Linnie and Donghyuck’s book painfully, excruciatingly. “Are you okay. What you said during lunch—” Jaemin inhaled through his nose but didn’t interrupt, though Renjun expected him to. He faltered. “—just worried me.”

For a moment, Jaemin was perfectly still, eyes flickering out of focus in a way Renjun couldn’t quite explain, and then he took another breath. This one filled him and brightened the smile that had drifted somewhere into the unknown. “Ah, I was just being dramatic. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Renjun searched his eyes, then looked at Jaemin’s long sleeves and found himself breathing through a thin straw. “Jaemin, you don’t—?” He gestured to his own wrists and Jaemin’s eyes widened.

“No,” he murmured. “No, I don’t. I promise. I don’t.” He hesitated for a moment, then pulled up one of his sleeves, showing his bare forearm. There was a bruise, but nothing else.

Renjun felt himself dissolve and closed his eyes. “Okay.” It seemed like there were people who did it everywhere around him in Pit. He didn’t understand. He understood the reason, but not the _why_. 

“I’m sorry. I promise I’m fine.”

He was relieved. He truly was.

* * *

Against his own expectations, Renjun stayed and hung with Jaemin and Jeno. For the most part, Renjun watched the spin of Jeno’s saber, the curving arcs, the smooth tosses. Every once in a while he’d actually glance down at his homework, though, and he always looked away to answer Donghyuck’s texts.

**From: Full Sun**

_are they cute?_

**To: Full Sun**

_no_

**From: Full Sun**

_bitch_

Renjun stifled a laugh against his shoulder and felt Jaemin’s eyes on him because of it.

“Who are you texting?” Jaemin asked, and it wasn’t demanding at all—he toned it like Renjun could ignore him completely if he wanted to.

He didn’t, really. “My best friend. He lives in Michigan.”

Jaemin let out an “oof,” but there was a smile in his voice when he said, “How’d you meet him?”

Renjun turned off his phone and set it aside. “He actually went here a year ago. We met in middle school.”

The squint Jaemin gave was thoughtful. “Was he in band?”

“Nah. He’s not into self-torture.”

From the grass, Jeno let out a laugh that startled the both of them, but Jaemin laughed back and Renjun bit his lip. He hadn’t realized Jeno was listening.

“He was in madrigals,” Renjun continued.

“Ask him if he knows Chenle!” Jeno said, and his smile was bright, the sun hitting him just right.

Renjun didn’t miss the mutter Jaemin gave, though he wasn’t sure what words came out between his lips.

**To: Full Sun**

_do you know a chenle_

**From: Full Sun**

_oh_

_yeah_

_tiny hyena_

_why_

“He called him a tiny hyena,” Renjun said, and they both got to hear Jeno laugh again.

* * *

At some point, some tall guy and petite girl rounded the corner of the building into the space the three of them had made for themselves. They were there to gather Jaemin and give him a ride home. Jaemin responded with a brightness and enthusiasm that was mirrored right back from the tall one. The girl just looked on with a smile.

They introduced themselves as “Lucas” and “Yuqi” respectively, and Lucas’s hands were downright dwarfing just like the rest of him. Yuqi was more Renjun’s size, and he could appreciate that.

After they collected Jaemin, it was just Renjun and Jeno, the latter with his gloves taken off and pencil applied to an AP workbook.

“Chenle sounds like a Chinese name,” Renjun said some time after Jaemin had left.

“It is.” Jeno dropped his pencil between the pages of his workbook and slid his legs out of a bend. There was a good half foot of space between them furnished by Jeno’s equipment bag. “I wish I knew Chinese so I could understand him when he cracks jokes, but I only know conversant Korean.”

Renjun smiled, but it was starting to feel strange that he’d done it so many times that day. He was more conscious of it than ever. “Bring me along sometime.”

Jeno gave him a scrunched smile, and he understood yet again why it was difficult not to smile around him (or Jaemin). Rather than resistant, he was somewhat grateful. “Then you’d just join him. Kid has it out for me.” With a groan, Jeno stretched out his limbs and moved to stand. “Speaking of, I gotta collect those two.”

“Two?”

“Jisung and Chenle.” Like it was the most natural thing, Jeno offered a hand to help Renjun to a stand as well. “If you want to come with. I’m just walking to the pool.”

Renjun took it, and Jeno’s grip was incredibly careful around the bandages and tape. He lifted him to a stand like it was nothing. He supposed those arms had to be good for something.

* * *

“Don’t you ever go home?” Renjun asked as soon as Jeno revealed that he was joining Jisung for cool downs at the pool (“He’s in water polo. Least buoyant boy ever.”) rather than like…_collecting_ collecting them. Renjun hated swimming—his sister had called him a drowned rat once and he’d never recovered.

Jeno only gave a breath of a laugh. “No use. My dad doesn’t come home until late,” he said. “Do you?”

Having the question turned on him prickled, but at least he could realize he was being unreasonable. “I usually practice for a while. I’ll go home soon.”

Jeno never stopped smiling, it seemed. “Thanks for hanging, then.”

* * *

Jeno raising his voice legitimately almost startled Renjun right out of his skin. He near bellowed out to the two figures left at the pool as they approached the fence, “Chenle! I brought a gege!”

“For _me_?” a voice shrieked back, and there was laughter and running and Renjun could only assume it was Chenle bursting through the pool gate.

Renjun was laughing even before this gangly teen launched right into Mandarin, and suddenly he was swallowing down whole mouthfuls of _home_.

Jeno grinned and passed them by to join (Jisung? Probably?) and Chenle was asking _so _many questions.

_“How old are you? Oh, a dragon! Just like Jeno! I’m a snake. What region are your parents from? I was born in Shanghai. Your Chinese is really good where did Jeno find you? Oh that makes sense. Try arm wrestling him sometime—he’s a beast.”_

Renjun was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt, and he wished he could tell Jaemin that he _was_ happier today. 

Chenle had the wildest black hair and marker stains all over his hands and forearms, eyes bright and wicked in a way that Renjun found charming. He was biased, of course, but that was fine.

* * *

_“Don’t look,”_ Chenle said, positioning himself in the way of Renjun’s view of the pool, and for the first time Renjun realized Chenle was his height. Not so tiny of a hyena, then.

_“Why?”_

_“Jeno’s shy when he’s shirtless.”_

Renjun couldn’t help but laugh, but he still nodded. They both leaned against the fence, backs to the pool, and Renjun let Chenle continue talking, only interrupting every so often.

_“Do you draw a lot?” _Renjun asked.

Chenle laughed, and his laugh was sharp and loud, but for now, Renjun would resist covering his closest ear. _“No. I just share a class with Jisung. We’re taking Social Psych together. You should see _his_ arms,” _Chenle said, glittering with the humor of having made it sound like the kids pulled fists on each other at the back of the school.

It was only when Renjun’s phone gave a chirp that he realized how late it was. “Shit.” He glanced at his mother’s gentle prod at where he was, then pocketed his phone again. _“Can you tell Jeno I’m going home?”_

_“Definitely. Be safe!”_

It was such an endearing sendoff that Renjun was still smiling halfway across the parking lot. When he realized it, he slapped his palms to his cheeks and took a deep breath, but the happiness lasted.

**To: Full Sun**

_I made a friend_

**From: Full Sun**

_gasp_

_happy for u but also don’t you dare replace me_

**To: Full Sun**

_beg_

**From: Full Sun**

_death first_

_call tonight?_

**To: Full Sun**

_mhm_

* * *

_“Alright. Tell me about these kids. I’m going to stalk them.”_

Renjun snorted, stretched out on his bed and watching his ceiling glow up every time the neighbor’s paranoid motion-sensor light went off. “Jeno Lee was the one with the electrical tape.” Renjun lifted his hand and investigated the way the black looked so neat around his fingers. He wondered if he’d like tattoos someday.

Maybe not.

But maybe.

He could hear Donghyuck’s thumbs tapping his phone screen from all the way in Michigan. His mom downstairs was singing to Chinese pop as she and his dad washed the dishes (he was benched for it because of his hands, but he was a good son and did other chores, so no shame).

_“Check your messages and please tell me this is him.”_

Renjun removed his phone from his ear, turned on the speaker, and flipped to Donghyuck’s text. The link took him straight to Instagram.

_“If it is, I need you to fuck up and like one of his posts.”_

“Don’t jinx me, Hyuck. Jesus.”

It _was_ his Jeno, actually, but the follower count was low, the pictures low-quality and taking after absolutely no aesthetic. Not that he cared. One picture was of him with Chenle and who he could only assume was Jisung, Jeno’s crinkly smile on full force. A comment below sounded like one Renjun could find on FaceBook from some 40-year-old white lady (_Such lovely boys! I hope you’re doing well, Jeno sweetie! _it said, and Jeno replied, _I am! Thank you, ma’am! _which was adorable, actually).

“Yeah, it’s him.”

_“You said he wasn’t cute!” _Donghyuck was loud enough across the speaker that Renjun glanced at his closed bedroom door in concern. _“Fuckin’ liar.”_

“You knew I was lying in the first place,” Renjun said, thumbing through a few more photos before closing out of the app and returning his phone to his ear. If he wasn’t going to follow Jeno, he’d better get off his account. It felt like a breach in privacy.

_“You going to go for it?”_

Renjun rolled his eyes, but smiled. “No. I need friends, not a crush.”

_“You got me there. Who’s the other kid?”_

“Jaemin uh. Na, I think.” Guilt stirred a little in his stomach, totally irrational. He’d know him for less than a week, and his name sounded right anyway.

_“Alright just a sec. It’s a good thing they’re both Korean. Makes it super easy.” _The wait was much shorter this time, but it was accompanied by a sound of pure disgruntlement from Donghyuck. _“This one’s on priv. Check the profile, though. He looks your age.”_

Renjun didn’t bother putting him on speakerphone this time, just clicking the link Donghyuck had sent as soon as it arrived.

He pressed the phone back to his ear. “You’re good at this.”

_“I’m going to follow him.”_

“Hyuck, no—Hyuck.”

_“Oop my finger slipped. Tell him about me and he might follow me back. The lengths I go for you.”_

“Jesus.”

_“Nope. Maybe someday, though.”_

Renjun rolled his eyes again and moved onto his stomach, elbows propping him up. “Are you really flying out here?”

Donghyuck hummed in thought on the other side of the country. _“I asked my parents a week ago, actually.”_

He pushed up onto his knees in surprise alone, the bed squeaking from the movement. “Wait. You’re serious?”

_“I don’t play around. They said if I get my homework for the next week done early I can. And I did already, in case you’re wondering.”_

“Shit.” Renjun bit down on his tongue as his eyes prickled and he landed back on his stomach, stuffing his face into his pillow. “Oh my god. You’re the best. I love you.”

_“I’m going to need someone to pick me up from the airport.” _Donghyuck sounded almost sheepish, as if he hadn’t just dropped everything to come out to California to support him.

“I’m going to have to return the favor, now.”

_“Dude. Get your face out of your pillow. I can’t tell what on earth you just said.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice Jeno still doesn't have a chapter. Perhaps I should say now that I have no plans to give him one for a while. Please pay attention to what he says and does, because his puzzle piece will be missing for some time. Bear with me ^^ ♡
> 
> A happier chapter to balance out Jaemin's iffy one ;; Renjun's taking a small reprieve, but it might be short-lived...You have my apologies in advance.
> 
> I'm curious if you guys have made any connections? There are a bunch of implied things going on, and some small nudges. If you have any theories, I'd love to hear them ♡ Please don't be afraid to comment! I get so excited at the chance to reply to you guys =]
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	5. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a super happy chapter, so if you can't do unhappy right now, come back later ♡ 
> 
> tw: implied physical abuse  
cw: emotional breakdown

When Yukhei clasped Jaemin to his chest in a big bear hug, he said, “Don’t go home.” They stood in the window blindspots of his house, the little gate to their entryway still closed. He could see the dwarf camellias, knew the leaves were a little sunburned if he got up close.

He didn’t expect it, but he felt Yuqi’s fingers at his wrist as Jaemin clung to Yukhei in turn. “We’re just going to go for takeout. If you think you can, you should come.”

Jaemin didn’t even try to pull away from Yukhei’s grip. He gave long hugs, and Jaemin wouldn’t even be tempted to lie to save face. Yukhei’s hugs sustained the part of him that curled up under his sheets at three a.m. 

“I don’t wanna third-wheel,” Jaemin said with his lips muffled against Yukhei’s shoulder—as if it were the best excuse he had (it wasn’t, but he wished it was his _only_ excuse).

“Then we’ll kidnap Mark.”

He pulled away from Yukhei and felt Yuqi’s fingertips slip from his wrist. “I gotta go inside.”

“Nana,” Yukhei said, and Jaemin wished it was a pout that he said it in, but he didn’t. It was a plea. It was earnest. Yuqi looked down.

Jaemin beamed at them both and patted Yukhei’s hip. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yukhei pouted now, bringing out the big, sad puppy eyes that this time around he probably wasn’t even aware of. Jaemin ignored him for the greater good.

“Have a cute date,” he added, incapable of imagining the two of them managing to _not _have a cute date, and slipped past the gate.

“We will,” Yukhei said, morose. Yuqi didn’t respond.

* * *

Jaemin would have killed for takeout after seeing dinner.

It wasn’t that bruschetta and salad weren’t good—it was just the mood. The essence of dinner. Sitting down and staring down fancy toast and realizing that if his mom had been in the mood to be this meticulous, he really should have gone for takeout.

“How’s school?”

Jaemin looked up from the scrutiny he’d given his plate and smiled. “It’s good. Got a good score on my math quiz.”

His dad looked unimpressed, but Jaemin was past the point of being fazed by the way his father’s eyebrows were as straight as the man’s entire love life (he got the talk once, and really wished he could have stopped the conversation as soon as his dad started on impregnation). “How about that late assignment?”

“My teacher accepted it. She said it’ll be in the grade book soon.” Which could be a lie if only because he didn’t dictate how or when his teachers did anything.

He glanced at his mother just in case she had anything to prod at, but she was just staring at him like he was hiding something. Which was never great. Because he was. Always.

Especially the location of her organizer.

He dug into the meal and ignored how the crust of the bruschetta brutalized the roof of his mouth. It tasted good, but he had to wonder what kind of takeout his friends went out for and whether, if they went for Panda, they got Mark orange chicken.

He got through only one of the breads before his mother said something.

“I’m disappointed in you.”

Despite his control of other things, he couldn’t manage involuntary reactions, so he had to settle for the way his stomach dropped at her words and hate himself for it.

Like she’d ever been proud of him.

He never knew how to tailor his body language when she was so direct, so he simply set down an entire forkful of greens and tried to meet her eyes.

She’d evidently either found her organizer or bought new mascara.

“I’m sorry,” he tried, though he wasn’t sure how it would go over.

Nothing he ever did went over well.

* * *

**To: Xuxixo  
** _offre still open  
_ _*?_

**From: Xuxixo  
** _shit yeah always  
_ _we r close b there in 4_

* * *

He didn’t even care if his parents heard the door slam when he left the house. They could strip his bed of sheets and throw out half his wardrobe and he’d care about it tomorrow, but not now.

He hadn't changed out of his shirt, either, and he could almost see the flash of thoughts rattle through Yukhei’s eyes when he saw him. It was sunset, Yuqi’s red car bathed in orange.

“Don’t,” Jaemin pinched out before Yukhei could cry.

“Sorry,” Yukhei murmured. When Jaemin slipped into the back seat, Mark was there, and neither of them were surprised at all. Mark took one look at the back of Jaemin’s neck and pressed his thin mouth into a thinner line. “Check my duffle,” Yukhei said, still quiet as he angled himself back into shotgun.

Everyone heard the front door open of Jaemin’s house, cracking into a flowerpot situated too close to its swing, and Mark flinched as he reached to unzip Yukhei’s bag.

No one had to tell Yuqi to go before they could hear Jaemin’s dad over the engine.

* * *

When Jaemin peeled his shirt off to shrug on a fresh one from the duffel, Mark struck the back of Yukhei’s headrest with his fist so hard Yukhei startled.

“Stop the car, Yuqi,” Mark said, voice inflexible but crackling at the edges.

With dusk sweeping the streets, Mark barely waited for her to pull up to an empty curb before he shoved himself out the door. He walked three paces into the dirt and scrub, a body away from the brick wall protecting other neighborhoods from absolutely no one.

When he screamed, it was throaty and angry and slipped into hurt, and everyone in the car recoiled. There had never been a reason for Jaemin to be afraid of Mark, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t scary like this.

Jaemin reached for the open doorway as a car whizzed past, brights blazing like some mad thing. “Mark. Mark, I’m fine. Please.”

The grey of the sky didn’t hide the shine of frustration in Mark’s eyes when he turned around, but he got in the car again, chest heaving, and put his head between his knees. Jaemin bit his lip and slipped into the soft, worn fabric of Yukhei’s spare workout shirt. He touched the soft hairs at Mark’s nape, grabbed his hand to kiss the tendons on its back where he had written _clean bathroom_.

He’d known Mark for three years and Yukhei for two—the latter because he was booming and handsome and tucked the new kid under his arm and told him with stunning exuberance that he had the prettiest eyelashes like, ever. Mark because he’d been sent to the nurse for vomiting three weeks in when his science class was dissecting frogs (Jaemin happened to be there to get a cold compress for his ankle). Friendships formed under strange circumstances, and it turned out that Mark had kissed Yukhei back in third grade for a game of spin the bottle. (“No homo, though,” Yukhei had said, and Mark had said, “No. Definitely homo,” then added, “but also not interested.” And Yukhei was very hard to offend, so there were no hard feelings.)

It was difficult to let many people in too close, but two years of proximal doggedness (Yukhei) and persistent loyalty (Mark) made Jaemin’s secrets open to them. And they dealt with them as well as any good friends might. Mark could have all his own buttons pushed and think it the funniest thing in the world, but if Jaemin talked too long about home and there was no more space for sympathy, Mark would seethe over and cut crescents into his palms with his fingernails.

Yukhei mostly teared up a little (or a lot if he thought Jaemin wasn’t looking) and offered love in all the languages he knew. Plushies, food, his own secrets, notes snuck into his band locker despite being genuinely intimidated by anyone with an instrument bigger than Mark’s flute. Jaemin didn’t count (“Oh, you’re baby, though,” Yukhei had said with his big puppy eyes).

“You’re _not_ fine,” Mark snipped, but it was soft in the middle like an undercooked pan of brownies. Mark was kind and loyal, and Jaemin knew the snip wasn’t to hurt him.

“Mark,” Yukhei pled, and Mark made an injured, whining sound, locking his fingers together behind his head as he pinched his temples with his knees.

“Mark,” Yuqi said, “I need you to sit up. You’ll snap your neck if we crash.”

“Let it snap.”

“No,” Yukhei said, too fast, and twisted in his seat to paw at Mark’s shoulder.

“Xuxi,” Yuqi reprimanded, and Yukhei sat forward again. Mark straightened more slowly, opened his eyes even slower. He reached for the hand from Jaemin he had abandoned and brushed his fingertips against the center of Jaemin’s palm. “We’re going for Greek,” Yuqi said.

“Falafel,” Yukhei said quietly, and Yuqi echoed it back with a nod.

“Gyros,” Mark grumbled like a rebuttal, and Jaemin tried to smile.

* * *

After ordering, Jaemin escaped to the bathroom and dumped palmfuls of water across his face as he tried to swallow breath. The back of his neck stung where the knobs of his spine slid, and he dragged a wet paper towel over any bare skin that wasn’t…there. Lucas had grabbed a plaster from his duffel before they’d entered the restaurant and had promised to patch him up.

It wasn’t his neck he couldn’t handle, though it would be especially inconvenient with his saxophone strap, and it hadn’t even come first in the slew. He’d snapped when his mother had tossed the entire contents of the water pitcher at him. The funniest part was that everything under his shirt was about a day or so older. So.

If he looked in the mirror, which he tried not to do very often unless he had a brush or wand in his hand, he could hate the bruises under his eyes most. He slept best at Yukhei’s or Mark’s, but it was hard to pull it off.

So he just didn’t sleep.

It was so bizarre to know that it had to be himself looking in the mirror—it was a truth to his reality—but it was so hard to recognize himself. He wasn’t who he expected when he looked at this smudged piece of glass drilled into the wall. He was too tired and too strange and too bony and something inside fit so badly in his skin that it was somehow visible.

He cleaned the water droplets from the arms of the sink and threw away the paper towel.

When he left the bathroom, the neck of Yukhei’s shirt was damp with water. There was a haziness spreading through his mind and body he was having a hard time leaving behind.

Jaemin slid into the booth the others were in and into the side-hug Yukhei offered, Yuqi having opted to sit by Mark for the sole allowance of letting Jaemin settle his cheek on her boyfriend’s chest.

They didn’t stop talking when he showed up, and for that he was grateful, even if it was about him. They didn't try to talk about him like he was fragile—if they were going to talk without him there, they would talk _with_ him there as well. It was a brand of caring Jaemin didn't always know he needed.

“You know we can’t,” Mark was saying, aggressive in the way he was swirling his straw in his complimentary pebble ice with water (not water with ice, because that wasn’t enough ice, thank you). “There are so many legal issues with that.”

“What are they gonna do? They’re not going to go up against my mom.” Yukhei looked helpless, one hand gesturing because he was busy keeping the other on Jaemin’s waist. He gave off warmth like a swirling star. Yuqi had her elbows on the table, listening to the exchange but giving Jaemin a small, thoughtful smile as he settled in. “They’re not a dick where they can be seen. You know what they’re like when we’re over. Thought I was getting fucking gaslighted.” Yukhei’s voice thrummed in his chest against Jaemin’s ear, and the haze deepened. And yeah, his best friends were debating about his life, but it felt safe to be with them, and he wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten last night but it wasn’t much.

He let himself slip because if he was going to fall asleep anywhere, he could do so warmly here. Even in an old greek restaurant with sticky tables and rasping soda machines.

* * *

“Nana.” 

Yukhei pulled him out of sleep by only nudging him, and he got _dragged_ out by the smell of food.

“Are you hungry?” That was Mark. He was still trying to get his eyes to focus.

“Mm.”

“Okay. Okay, have what you want.”

“Nana, can I patch up your neck?”

“Mm.”

Jaemin rested his forehead on the edge of the table and let Yukhei minister with his big hands and big heart. It was ticklish, then stung and Jaemin sucked in a breath, clasping his hands together, awake.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Yukhei said, voice loud but so, so soft.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Mark said. Because he needed to. Because Jaemin had been saying that for ages now and Mark was set to be a reminder that _No. _It_ Wasn’t._

“Jaemin?” Yuqi said, and Jaemin almost looked up, but Yukhei was still putting neosporin on his skin.

“Yes?”

She didn’t continue right away, so he just waited, heard Yukhei peel the plaster off its wrappings and then the careful application. When he straightened up, Yuqi’s fingertips were pressed to her lips. “Has it always been like this?” she finally asked, and the funny thing was, he didn’t know.

“I don’t know,” he said, and tried to convey he was being honest. He remembered the first time he opened up to Mark and his hushed, terrified _no_ when Jaemin had asked whether his parents did the same things.

He reached for the tzatziki and falafel when the door jangled for another customer and they all, collectively, felt they couldn’t talk about it anymore.

* * *

Yuqi did his makeup in the morning because even though Jaemin had a breakdown in the car over how bad it would be if he didn’t go back home, he didn’t. He didn’t go back home. He slept over at Yukhei’s with everyone else because his mom suspected a lot and made amazing omelettes. Yuqi, too, had slept over, though Yukhei’s mom made up the spare room for her. The opportunity for comparative luxury wasn’t something she’d pass up just to be in a room of three boys who passed out as soon as they were even halfway in bed.

As Yuqi’s steady hands did a peach look, Jaemin watched Mark shimmy on a pair of jeans over spiderman briefs and complain about calculus. Yukhei was only half listening, fishing under his bed for the pen that had just fell out of his backpack and humming appropriately whenever Mark needed validation.

“I love them,” Jaemin whispered to Yuqi only, and she chuckled under her breath.

“Don’t tell Xuxi that. He’ll cry.”

“I’m going to miss you guys.”

Yuqi dropped her hands as her eyes melted, reaching only to tidy Jaemin’s bangs. “We’ll miss you, too. Worry about you every day, probably.”

Jaemin tried to swallow, but it hurt at the moment, so he closed his eyes again and just let Yuqi continue. She was gentle and careful, and when she was done, Jaemin pulled out all the stops to beg her to do his makeup every morning. It was such a soft look.

* * *

Only once Yuqi had parked in the school lot did anyone bring up what they’d done.

Yukhei turned his big eyes on him, unlacing his fingers from Yuqi’s so as to not contort his body when he looked toward the back seat. “Did we get you in even more trouble?”

Jaemin wished Yukhei simply hadn’t asked, because the answer was definitely _yes_, but it was as much Jaemin’s decision as theirs. “We’ll see,” Jaemin said with a touch of humor and smiled. “Right now, I’m more worried about Ms. M skinning me alive for skipping zero period.”

“I’ll shove my flute up her ass,” Mark muttered, and Yukhei gave him a look of apprehension.

“Markie, I think you should see someone for your anger.”

Yuqi laughed at the steering wheel and Mark gave back a look of indignant offense. “You yelled at me for licking the peanut butter knife!”

“I needed it!”

“Get out of my car.”

* * *

Jaemin knew there was absolutely no healthy way to have his phone on when it would become a receptacle for fury as soon as its screen woke up. So his phone remained off. In fact, it stayed in his locker throughout the entire day and especially through lunch.

“What happened to your neck?” Renjun asked, and Jaemin settled his chin in his palm. Renjun looked less worn compared to when he’d originally seen him. It had only been less than a week, so his impressions were unreliable at best, but he could swear Renjun looked better. Renjun wasn’t one of those kids who seemed to give a damn about fashion (if his plain t-shirt and shorts were any indication), but he looked good nonetheless.

Maybe it was just the lighting, though. It was a beautiful day—not too hot, but quite sunny. A breeze carried itself through everywhere on campus and disrupted any loose papers students had tucked under their crisscrossed knees or textbooks set in their laps.

“Box fell from my closet,” Jaemin said simply. “I’m fine. Just dumb.”

Renjun winced, and that was just…inarguably very cute of him. “Ow.” He wasn’t practicing today, which Jaemin personally supposed must be a good sign (or at least a healthy one). “You seem to hurt yourself a lot,” he said, though it verged on a question.

Jaemin twinkled at him, using his forearm for an anchor for the open pages of his notebook now that he was looking at Renjun. Despite having to mask truths a little more thoroughly, it was satisfying to know that he had his attention. “What makes you say that?”

“The bruise on your arm,” Renjun said, picking at his zongzi (god, his parents must make such good dinners).

“Hm?” Jaemin feigned, and rolled the right sleeve of his shirt down. He was wearing one of Mark’s slate henleys. They looked like god on Mark when he cared to style his hair, but maybe less than that on Jaemin. “Oh that. I don’t even know where I got that.” He shook his sleeve down again, conscious of the four matching bruises on the other side of his forearm as he leaned it back against the tabletop. “I’ve always bruised easily.”

Renjun accepted that (most people did), and Jaemin turned the questions around to learn that the music Renjun listened to mostly followed anyone who had a good voice.

“I sing. Sometimes.”

With a laugh, Jaemin admitted, “Oh I _so_ don’t.”

Renjun’s eyebrows twitched, eyes narrowing just slightly. “Why not?”

Jaemin closed his notebook as he often did at some point with Renjun, offering his full attention. There was a tiny tuft of Renjun’s hair that was disorganized from the rest, and Jaemin was trying to not fixate on it, overly endeared. “It’s like…my mom’s thing.”

“Her what?” Renjun pulled a face of confusion.

“She sings.” Jaemin hesitated, then tried to shove his internal arms up to stop one of his walls from falling. He spiraled anyway in another strange, out-of-body realization, and scrambled to figure out how to explain himself even though he’d tripped into a pitfall he didn’t even realize existed. He knew things weren’t right, but even so he couldn’t anticipate what things from his home life weren’t normal if Mark or Yukhei hadn’t been able to warn him. So here he was, realizing in front of an acquaintance he desperately wanted to get closer to, that once again his mother was a freak. “That’s her thing. I can’t take that from her.”

Renjun was staring at him, face composed of something mild but disturbed. “Wouldn’t she want you to do something she also loves?”

With as much care and subtlety as he could manage, Jaemin separated his Self from the conversation, because if he kept fully rapt and invested, he’d have a goddamn breakdown. “It’s just something she’s sensitive about.” _I don’t know why I’m not allowed to love what she loves, or touch what she loves, or be something she loves. I don’t._

“Huh,” Renjun said, and bit the mouthpiece of his water bottle. “Well, you should come singing with me sometime. I bet you have a good voice.” If Jaemin weren’t floating outside the conversation, he would have short-circuited. “Jeno can come too, maybe?”

Back online.

Mostly.

He’d postpone his breakdown.

“Please,” he said, and made himself sound bright instead of desperate.

“Do you have a phone?”

Jaemin flickered. “Yeah. Yeah, uh. Let me give you my number.”

* * *

He did not get to have his breakdown. Instead, he got an office call slip in biology. He bit his lip and tore off the dead skin until it was bleeding and his teacher was giving him a concerned look, eyes flicking to the call slip she’d given him in a wordless question.

Jaemin smiled at her, shaky, and continued to ignore the yellow piece of paper in favor of taking notes off her slideshow. He tried to act natural when she approached him once the notes were done.

“Jaemin? The slip said it was urgent, didn’t it?” she asked.

Wordlessly, he shook his head. She knew he could read. He prayed she made the connection. He’s sure she did, by the look in her eyes, but she still pushed after a stutter of vacillation nonetheless.

“I have to send you to the office.”

He inhaled, nodded, and got up, grabbing everything and exiting the sterile classroom.

He did not go to the office.

* * *

The band room was a collection of turf nibs and ugly, secretive green carpet that could conceal black mold, and only the autopsies and god would know. Trophies lined the upper, distant shelves near the ceiling, some so old they were becoming one with the dust—others new enough that the trombones had managed to stick rubber duckies on them before they were hefted up there (never to be touched again).

Jaemin was sure that in theory, despite the band room breeding nightmares like dust bunnies, it was the place students went to escape, because as he sat there in the utterly bereft and silent expanse of a room, he felt small enough to disappear. And he wanted to.

It would have been unnerving to have the band room in silence if it were any other time of day—nowhere near lunch nor passing. Just Jaemin sitting on the bottom step of the tiers and the broken clock that couldn’t move past the minute thirty-three.

His phone was still in the locker, probably accruing the thin sheen of residue grime and sweat that everything in that room did. Too many students coming in practically steaming from their jazz runs and drum breaks.

He hugged his knees and was blind to the passage of time because there was nothing around him to suggest that time passed at all. There weren’t any windows, and there was no one there.

When the bell rang for passing, he hugged his knees and watched his peers go to their next class, and he was too afraid to follow suit. Another slip might come if he showed up in class. Or maybe an office TA. Or a counselor.

Jaemin got up and moved his body to the guard storage room, unlocked and full of bright flags and tape and dull swords and faux guns. He sat in a corner and covered his face and cried.

* * *

There were voices outside the guard door. It had opened once and then closed quickly, and Jaemin had tilted his head back into the corner and waited.

When Jeno slipped in, he was less than surprised, but he _was_ surprised when he got so close and crouched down next to him. “Do you need to stay here?”

It was the question Jaemin least expected, and something about it made his throat hurt and ache and god he did _not_ want to cry in front of Jeno.

“I’ll be back in two minutes, okay?”

Jaemin didn’t respond—he barely processed what Jeno said, but there was some general noise, and then the door opening and closing again, and then Jeno was back but this time he touched Jaemin’s hair and tugged his head toward his chest. He smelled like chlorine and deodorant, but not too much of either one, and Jaemin was crying in earnest.

Jeno hugged him so, so gently, and Jaemin was hearing everything from a distance—even himself—but Jeno didn’t say a word.

When everything subsided, Jaemin still didn’t let go. Chlorine and deodorant smelled a lot better than no one at all and sweat.

“What do you need?” Jeno asked.

“My phone.”

“Where is it?”

“Locker.”

“Should I go get it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys doing okay? Once again, you have my sincere apologies ;; Hopefully some parts of this chapter could make you smile a little!
> 
> Please consider leaving a comment so I can hear your thoughts!! I'm always wondering.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
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	6. Renjun

The good couldn’t last. It just wasn’t realistic.

Sarwendah was late to practice, and she was never late. “I had to refill my water,” she said, and apologized profusely to the pit tech and settled into her place.

“You look happy today,” she managed to say as she slipped by, and it was no cute observation. Renjun stared ahead instead of allowing her the knowledge he heard. He let his eyes roam the football field until his heart stopped pinching. He could pick out both Jaemin and Jeno, the latter boy with his flag tucked into his elbow as it fluttered pathetically, hands cupped to his face to breathe into his bare fingers. Jaemin was flipping through his dot book, the cover of which was a fluorescent pink.

The mornings were getting colder, the whole band rising before the sun had even tickled the leaves of the tallest trees, and the sun was rising now. One of the upperclassmen had shared a piece of trivia she had experienced on one of her hunting trips: “As the sun rises over the horizon, everything drops a few degrees. Bring your handwarmers or die like men.”

In any case, he had been happier in some ways. The day had already been better than most—there was no other way to start a day when Chenle texted you at the ass-crack of dawn. “i hop u kno jens fuckin blind,” he’d texted, and Renjun had stared at that text for a full thirty-something seconds before its letters climbed together and formed words. And then he had snorted cereal milk up his nose, which was extremely unpleasant.

Jeno hadn’t worn glasses around him yet, which made Renjun wonder if contact lenses needed to be thick. If he’d be able to feel them on his corneas like tears. Maybe he could ask him during first period.

“Full run!” the director boomed over the loudspeaker, hair mixing with the heat of her breath when Renjun cared to look back at her. She was bundled in one of those massive coats that expanded a human three extra sizes.

With numb fingers, he adjusted his mallets and relaxed. 

If there was one thing he knew perfectly, it was their show—from beginning to end, from choreographed movements to flourishes, from his swap to the marimba and the different feel of the mallets making contact with the bars. It was fluid.

Assessments weren’t just the show run-through, but he would continue to practice it anyway until his muscles flinched out correct notes on impulse alone.

* * *

Zero period run-throughs were the worst because they had to drag the equipment out of the band room in the first place, then had to haul them back before first period ended, and sometimes the tech failed to estimate that time reasonably. Not always, but often enough that Renjun’s pavlovian response to “We’re wheeling out today!” was a cell-deep weariness of soul.

Today was one of those times, where one of the upperclassmen piped up about the time, and the tech elected to ignore him, and by the time the techs got their shit together, they were cramming the tail-end of the period.

“I’m sorry, guys!’ the pit tech yelled. “I lost track of time!”

_Fuck off_, thought Renjun. Mostly because Ms. Karris was a stickler for tardies and the tech, as pseudo-staff, couldn’t write a late note.

“Oh, Renjun,” Sarwendah said, and Renjun shot her a look of impatience as they rolled their instruments across the parking lot. He hated how his eyes stung before she had so much as said a single mean thing. “I think I saw one of your mallets drop out of the bag back on the field?”

He could barely—just barely—bite down on the urge to tell her to _stop. fucking. touching his things._ It was one thing to call him a slur under her breath. It was another thing for her to consistently mess with his stuff. And he _knew _she had because mallets didn’t just fall out of their bags. The partitions were high-walled to the point that only the heads poked out, and she was so fucking—

“No worries, Sarwen.” Like some specter, Jeno appeared aside Renjun and slipped forward to drop one of his yarn mallets back next to its pair. His hair was somehow still styled just right as kind of all over the place but artfully so, and if Renjun looked closely, he had pink shadow around his eyes like the blush of tears.

First period was one both color guard and percussion shared with each other, though Renjun had never taken the time to pay attention to color guard before, and he still couldn’t properly find the time now. He had stolen glances this time and wondered what the hell he was doing when he watched Jeno just stand there at parade rest as the snares practiced synchrony. 

Renjun couldn’t figure out what to say. Guard had it easier with their single bags and no whole-ass xylophones to push, but they always helped. It was a courtesy forced upon them in the first days of band.

Sarwendah looked distinctly uncomfortable, her expression flickering into something like exasperated disgust before she reasserted herself to get up the concrete hill to the band room. Jeno made a thoughtful sound, moving to the front end of Renjun’s vibes to help him up the ramp.

“Sorry for touching your mallets,” Jeno said, smile flickering up even as he had to glance behind himself for direction. He held the back metal door open with his foot. “I wouldn’t have if—”

“It’s fine, Jeno. Thank you,” Renjun said. Annoyance was prickling much higher than he knew what to do with, and none of it was properly aimed at Jeno in any deserved capacity. It annoyed him that an acquaintance had more courtesy than his section-mate of two years going on three. It annoyed him that he’d missed Sarwendah being a bitch just for Jeno to notice and help him. His chest felt tight.

“You’re welcome,” Jeno said, quiet. “Do you—will you be available after school?”

Renjun’s throat was so taut he couldn’t swallow. “No.”

* * *

It was when he touched his backpack that it all crumbled to bits. Even with two whole periods having passed, it was sopping wet, the straps dribbling a little if he squeezed them too tightly, and the band room carpet was damp beneath its navy canvas. It was sodden with care, every one of his notebooksinside wrinkled and damp and bleeding, and even his earbuds were winking with water.

He was frozen aside from his hands, which were shaking even as the end of passing-period bell crept nearer. In his binder were all the notes his dad had written to accompany his lunches, and they were drenched to hell and back, the ink spreading into the next sticky note until all the Mandarin didn’t look like anything but symbols. He didn’t dare look properly at the purple notebook he and Donghyuck had doodled in during science last year.

For a moment, he imagined Sarwendah taunting him with her refilled water jug, her ankles bare from her cut-off jeans and just thin enough for him to snap if she walked close enough.

Renjun breathed through his nose and closed his eyes, counting. Counting. Counting.

With one last breath, he lifted himself and his backpack off the ground and walked to class.

* * *

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _can I store my backpack in your locker for 0?_

“Please put your phone away,” said Ms. Karris as she skimmed past his desk.

“Sorry.” Renjun slid it under his thigh and refocused on the problem he was meant to solve. His seat mate had lent him paper, which he’d asked for almost entirely under his breath, and at least all of his writing utensils were intact.

It still stung.

* * *

Jaemin did not respond in that period. Nor the next.

* * *

Lunch felt very quiet without him.

And it was…it felt…Renjun wasn’t sure. He’d seen him that morning, so he had to be at school, but there was an entire mess of guessing going on. Had he insulted him? Did he go home sick? He’d never actually seen Jaemin with his phone—had he given him a wrong number? Did he misinterpret Jaemin’s company?

He felt his heart skid like a badly-thrown bowling ball when his phone pinged.

**From: Chenle  
** _ur not hanging 2dy?_

Renjun rubbed his face, then went back to fiddling with the fresh note his dad had written for his lunch. (记得把夹克带到学校，别着凉了, it said).

**To: Chenle  
** _might. I have to ask jeno something_

**From: Chenle  
** _gl_

**To: Chenle  
** _nothing major_

**From: Chenle  
** _gl nyway_

With the wind shuddering through campus, Renjun finished his lunch. He let his mind be anxious over Jaemin to distract him from everything else because this one bad thing was better than all the other bad things.

It wasn’t the best coping mechanism, but boy was he coping.

Donghyuck had gone into long-distance, I-can’t-do-anything friend mode when he’d threatened to call the school counselors, and that had lifted the loss somewhat, but god.

Luckily, most schoolwork was online these days—he’d lost barely anything academic, but what was worse? Personal? Or academia?

In any case, he let his mind wander to the injury on Jaemin’s neck as he picked at the last bits of rice from his tupperware. He wasn’t sure it made sense for Jaemin to bandage a bruise, and if the box had been heavy enough to abrade, how did Jaemin manage not to sprain his neck?

Maybe he stayed home to recover. Soreness was always worse the second day, wasn’t it?

Renjun put his face in his hands and groaned.

* * *

The fact that Jeno smiled immediately upon Renjun catching up to him made his insides flinch.

“Hi,” Jeno said, that red tint around his eyes glittering slightly now that he was up close, and Renjun wanted to punch him.

He reeled in that alarming instinct, opened his mouth, and realized he’d forgotten what he was going to say. Jeno had paused, still smiling, and upon maybe only two seconds passing, he said, “Walk with me? Jisung asked me to watch today.”

Renjun nodded and kept pace, eyes trained on any other students on campus (from the guy in his language class to a freshman girl throwing her shoe at kid who’d nabbed her backpack and smacking a tree instead).

“How was your day?” Jeno asked.

“Can I have your number?” Renjun said instead of answering, and without a missing beat, Jeno responded, “Sure.”

Mutely, Renjun handed over his phone. Let his eyes drift over the smile Jeno seemed to keep near-perpetually in his expression, and accepted his device back.

“You have first lunch?” Renjun said, because he was starting to feel pathetic, and somehow even worse now that he had Jeno’s number and he’d handed his phone back so gently.

Jeno nodded, eyes doing that crescent crinkly thing. “I haven’t seen you or Jaemin, so I’d bet you have second?”

Renjun opened his mouth, thought through what he was going to say, swallowed, then followed through. “Speaking of Jaemin, he wasn’t at lunch.”

More than anything, it was a question. And somehow, Jeno answered. “He skipped his last period yesterday, so he was doing make-up work during lunch.”

“Oh.”

Renjun wondered if he still hadn’t eaten. Like every lunch.

They were at the front gates now, and the school pool was beyond it. Renjun composed a text out to Jeno (“it’s Renjun”) before speaking. “How do you know?” It was a selfish, unreasonable question, but it also wasn’t left-field, so he asked it anyway.

“I talked to him in the band room. He didn’t tell me why he was there, though.” Jeno pulled out his phone and smiled at the notification.

Renjun could feel himself flit through too many emotions at once, and he decided on not acknowledging any of them. Instead, he returned to the earliest problem: “Maybe this is not okay but. Can I keep my backpack in the guard room? From now on?”

Now at the parking lot, they both watched one of the band kid freshmen try to stuff himself and his baritone in the passenger seat of his mom’s car all at once. Other cars were idling, the traffic out clogged by seniors and tired parents. 

“Yeah, that’s definitely fine,” Jeno said, response so easy. “You can hand it off to me before zero and I’ll stash it for you.”

“I guess the rest of the guard wouldn’t want me in there.” 

Jeno laughed a little and smiled in a way that was near-teasing. “We’re a cult and don’t take to strangers well.”

Renjun narrowed his eyes in an attempt not to smile back. “You’re the exception.”

His grin was unexpectedly sweet, and it left his next words open for only one interpretation. “Not really.”

* * *

It was downright amazing how a chlorinated pool could flavor every and anything around it like a room full of cigarette smoke (though the former was more pleasant). Chenle was sitting with them while Jeno worked on homework, asking Renjun on the upcoming assessment as they sat on the observation bleachers.

“It’s just, like. We play our fieldshow the whole way through and also pick a song we think will showcase our skills well. And we practice and pray for the best,” Renjun said. They weren’t bothering to speak in Mandarin—not with Jeno beside them.

“What are you doing for your piece?” Chenle asked, eyes following one of the bodies during the polo skirmish. It was interesting because Chenle spent very little time looking away from the pool, only glancing at Renjun every so often. He was less than insulted.

“Yiruma,” Renjun confessed.

Chenle actually turned to him. “Oh, which?”

“‘Kiss the Rain.’ I’ve got technique down and that’ll more than show in the run-through.” Renjun propped his cheek on his palm. “It’s the emotion I struggle with, and our director will have been told about that.”

“Huh,” said Chenle, and turned back to the pool, watching his best friend cut through the water. “That makes sense.” A smile overtook his face, pulling his mouth toward something so stupidly bright Renjun was starting to think the people starting to shove themselves into his life were half-battery, half-human. “Hey, Jen.” He nudged him, and Jeno flinched when his pencil mark drifted on his work, but seemed otherwise unbothered. “We should go.”

Jeno blinked. “But Jisung’s not done?”

Chenle rolled his eyes and laughed. “To Renjun’s assessments.” He peeked back at Renjun. “When is it?”

“About a week.”

Jeno didn’t look like he was about to say no, but Chenle turned his eyes pleading nonetheless. “Yeah, okay. Is that okay? Do you want us there?”

“I’m not sure Ms. M will let people in,” Renjun admitted, “but I wouldn’t mind having you there for before and after.” For a fleeting moment, he imagined Donghyuck meeting Jeno and decided to rather _not_ think about it. Best friends didn’t trust each other like that. He’d have to bribe him.

If possible, Chenle turned brighter. “We can do that! What would you want if you won? Jeno can sugar-daddy you.”

It was all Renjun could do not to raise his eyebrows, but Jeno did all the reacting for him, expression turning dark and blushing. The look fluttered and flickered, and then he laughed and tilted his head at Chenle. “You’re better off than I am.”

Renjun’s thoughts stuttered, but he managed to get out, “It’s not like…a competition.”

Chenle turned his eyes back to him, eyebrows raised, expression near-gleeful at his successful emotional heist. “There’s not someone you want to beat?”

His stomach jolted and he swallowed down the hurt and anger of this morning like a poison that kept coming up. “I like hotpot,” he said firmly.

It was a win for Chenle, and he smiled. “Doesn’t everyone?” 

Renjun rather thought it would be more dangerous for Donghyuck to meet Chenle, actually, andthat a bribe might not work at all. He thought he preferred Chenle as an excitable stranger to someone who thought they could get away with a sugar-daddy tease.

He was right. He could get away with it.

* * *

It wasn’t until the evening that Renjun got a response.

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Yeah!!!! Yeah shit sorry. I haven’t looked at my phone all day!_

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _it’s good I asked Jeno to keep it in the guard room_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Oh cool cool~!! What happened? ( •́ ^ •̀ )_

Renjun stifled a smile at the kaomoji with his palm, curling his legs under him on his bed as he messaged back.

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _someone messed w my stuff_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Oh god that’s the WORST feeling!! I’m so sorry!  
_ _Do you know who it is??_

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _yeah but I can’t do anything abt it_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _I’ll fight!!! ٩(๑`^´๑)۶_

Laughter bubbled up despite himself and he ran his hands through his hair, leaning back against his bedroom wall and sighing.

His phone pinged again and he looked back down.

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _See you Monday~!!_

** To: Jaemin Na  
** _have a good one!_

** From: Jaemin Na  
** _I so will! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و You too~!_

* * *

As the very last Friday before “Super Saturdays” would start up at gross-o’clock, it wasn’t until 2 A.M. that Renjun fell asleep. His thoughts were drowned out by Donghyuck complaining over the phone about how ugly the boys at his school were and that they served peanut-butter sandwiches at lunch (“Which is the _lowest_ bar?”). It was a silly solution, but Donghyuck complaining about how much Michigan sucked made Renjun feel a lot better. Unfailingly.

_“How are you feeling?” _Donghyuck had asked, tentative enough that Renjun had known _exactly_ what he was asking with no extra words added.

“I’m happier. Today could have been worse,” he had found himself admitting.

_“A week ago you might have snapped her ankles,”_ Donghyuck had said, and the tempting image flashed dangerously, but dull.

“I feel less lonely,” he had managed quietly, and the sigh Donghyuck had let out was a sound of bitten-back relief.

_“Send me those good vibes. Damn.” _They were both struggling—had been. Renjun was praying that this wasn’t a fluke. _“God, I’m relieved, though. You’re the best friend I’ll ever have, you know?”_

Renjun had grinned. “Shut up.”

_“Death first.”_ A pause. _“I’m excited to meet them. You’ll ask Jaemin to come?”_

Renjun had found himself nodding, drowsy. “Yeah. If you want. Maybe you’ll fall for one of them. Do an LDR.”

_“Thanks, I’d rather die. I can maintain a friendship, but not a relationship.”_ Donghyuck had laughed. _“Long-distance or not. Besides, Injun. I think you like them.”_

“Maybe. How’s that for selfish?” he had mumbled.

_“Jesus, you’re honest. Time for bed.”_

Renjun had only hummed, and even the blue light of his screen couldn’t keep him awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this one took so much longer! The latter half of next week should see a lot of updates, though, so!! Strap in!
> 
> There's still a lot more to be told before Jeno gets to pitch in, so for now try to pay close attention to the little things with him.
> 
> Please, _please_ support me by leaving a comment if you can. This is a gift for one person, of course, but I would really love to hear everyone's thoughts. Otherwise it's just kind of empty ;; I reply to every comment and treasure every one, so please consider it...
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	7. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned: this is a very difficult chapter.  
Tw: dissociation, panic, abuse

** _From: :((( _ ** ** _♡  
_ ** _have a good one!_

Jaemin could hardly see his screen properly, 6%, rectangular light hazy in the hollow-doored darkness of his closet, breath coming so spinningly shallow he couldn’t figure out how to do it properly.

He could hear something slam with a bang on the first floor and flinched so hard he dropped his phone, the thud making his hands jump to his face first. His breath knocked back from his palms as he squeezed his eyes shut. They could not hear that, he did not want them to. They could not. Please.

One.

Two.

Three.

The screaming muffled by an entire floor did not stop or get louder, only shredded bellows ripped outside the body, dipping and cutting in piercing words. Jaemin fumbled for his phone, shaking out a response to Renjun so he could curl up against the cluttered boxes and old toys shoved into his closet.

** _To: :((( _ ** ** _♡  
_ ** _I so will! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و You too~!_

He shut off his phone.

Without his screen on, he couldn’t see anything at all except for the tiny slivers of shadowed light sneaking in from the cracks around his closet’s sliding doors. He could feel, though, the bottoms of his shirts and slacks against his hair, the edge of one of the boxes pressing too near the bruise on his back that was souring yellow to contrast the purple above it. Against his bare toes, he could feel the cheap plastic ridges of an 13-year-old toy truck that had long since been vandalized with “washable” marker.

If he listened, he would know what the voices on the first floor said, but there was no satisfaction in it if he did. Those words would just find their way into his journal where he’d burn cold and sick until he forget everything in it.

Someday he would soak the pages until the ink wept its clarity away. He’d be able to rub the paper between his palms until they were little more than pathetic nubs of pulpy, processed wood.

Jaemin sunk himself down into the tiniest he could be, reaching up only to yank a sweatshirt from its hanger, his breath colder than the air around him and sallow in his lungs.

There was nothing stopping them from climbing into his room and finding him cramped in his closet aside from the sweatshirt bundled up over his body.

If he could suffocate on his parents’ screams, he would.

* * *

_“Jaemin, if you’re in your fucking bedroom, you better come down to breakfast right this second.”_

His mother’s voice sprouted like a weed from the intercom, turned to its highest volume at all times (he never dared to lower it). It squeezed all the way through the cracks in the closet door to his ears, muffled as they were by his hood.

She must have kept her finger down on the button, because he could hear his dad murmur, _“I’ll get him.”_

_“No you won’t. He’ll use his two working legs and haul his ass down here on his own. Jaemin! Do you hear me? Get down here!”_

_“Jaemin.”_

_“He turned his fucking intercom off.”_

Jaemin counted the seconds, inhaling delicately through his nose for silence, out through his mouth as slow and slack-jawed as he could.

His bedroom door knocked open, the metal stop making a weak, twangy noise in distress.

There was a click as one of them fiddled with the intercom. “It’s on.” His dad.

He could hear his sheets being yanked back, the weight of footsteps he had memorized, a breath he knew was his fathers. The door opening to his bathroom was violent, slamming into the pony wall that was just inside.

“Did he go out the window?” his mother said, her tone disbelieving, piercing through Jaemin’s shaky, silent exhale. The tips of his toes pressed against the plastic ridges of his toy truck.

“How could he?”

“God those friends of his probably—”

Jaemin stopped listening. Wouldn’t keep listening. Didn’t want to.

(“What do you do to hide?” Mark had asked once, and he’d replied, “Pretend I don’t exist.”)

* * *

He always waited until every possible bit of him was numb. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t falling asleep. He was just staring at the shallow, fake woodgrain of his door, counting seconds and breaths and heartbeats.

Only then would he crawl his way out and claim to exist again. If only in body.

His legs stung in their reclamation of blood, distant and wobbly, and he was still careful enough not to make noise. Not to reveal one of his last hiding places.

His parents were bad at finding. Finding love, finding patience, finding their son as small as a puppet cluttered over its own limbs at the bottom of a closet.

He let the floors and stairs creak, making his way down bare foot by bare foot, palm sliding against the handrail.

“Jaemin?” His mother picked up on his disturbance easily, honing in like an echolocation made from waves of anger.

“Yes,” he said, murmured, composed himself like a mannequin as his soles met the air-conditioned cold of the tiles. His mother stared at him from the dining table, hair pinned up in black and blue and gaze frustrated, clinging to a certain something Jaemin couldn’t name. He was not his mother. Tried desperately not to be either of his parents.

“Where were you?”

“Upstairs.”

She had her laptop open, her wrist brace for her weak joints and internet addiction on, eyelashes curled and complexion smoothed out to display the blossoming of her anger perfectly. “Did you not _hear_ me earlier? Where _were _you?”

“I didn’t,” Jaemin whispered. “I’m sorry. I was asleep.”

_“Where?”_

“The guest bedroom.”

“Why?” she nearly barked, and he couldn’t recall how to flinch for the moment. “Never mind,” she snipped, and stood up. “You’re beyond me.” Jaemin fought to not close his eyes. “Your father made a perfectly good breakfast, but it’s cold now because you couldn’t care enough to come down.”

_I was asleep_, his lie echoed painfully. It was untrue, but why was she blaming him for being unconscious?

“I’m sorry,” he said instead, watched her get closer until he had to bite his tongue to stop from crying at the proximity alone. Even numbness couldn’t shove instincts that were bone-deep. She was beautiful. He wished she believed that. But instead she was so angry he wanted to run.

“Where on earth did we go wrong with you, Jaemin?”

His bones creaked out the bare-minimum answer: _I don’t know._

* * *

Yukhei’s house was all light citrus and clean linen, open and green and bright. It was his mother’s influence, he claimed, and his father’s quiet appreciation of her culture that infused it all with soft golds and bright plants and wind chimes in the windows. Everyone in that household laughed loudly, a register higher than expected, and his mother loved to tease. His father played the cello, and if it was the weekend, sometimes he would take it out at eight o’clock and play the lullabies he composed for his two sons.

Mark’s house was a lot less decorative and shining. It was reserved, but in very much a similar way to Mark: kind of quiet and brought to life by people, music, and words. Every room had a bookcase and a fifty-percent chance of music turned down low. It was neutrals with pops of color and think pieces, embracing whatever chaos wandered in. His stepdad had a gift for making incredible sandwiches, his mom liked to paint, and his brother once broke his own arm falling off a lemonade stand.

Jaemin sat with his back to the wall, phone charging at his hip while the breeze through the tall window nibbled through his hair. He worked on the homework nestled in his lap and wondered what Jeno’s house was like. What Renjun’s was like.

His father cracked open a can of soda in the kitchen, peering into the living room where his son sat. “Can’t you sit on the couch like a normal human?”

Jaemin shook his head and tried not to close his eyes, to look at his dad in the face. He was getting older, but still had the face of someone who could slip into a magazine. “Your scruff suits you,” Jaemin murmured, and his dad almost sneered like it was an insult.

His dad had never taught him how to shave.

He learned on his own.

* * *

**To: Je-maybe  
** _Hey! It’s Jaemin~ ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ  
_ _I was wondering if you were free?_

**From: Je-maybe  
** _Hi Jaemin!  
_ _I can be! What’s up?_

Jaemin stared down at his phone, realizing about three minutes too late that neither of them were old enough to drive. Jeno was his same age, and unless they lived unexpectedly close…

Well, as his mother put so succinctly, he had two working legs.

**To: Je-maybe  
** _I just wanted to hang out!  
_ _I’m a little bored (´∩｀。)_

**From: Je-maybe  
** _aha your emojis are cute ^^  
_ _I can be free in an hour?  
_ _Do you want to meet somewehre?  
_ _*somewhere_

**To: Je-maybe  
** _jfdjsdkksd  
_ _uh  
_ _Maybe that coffee place!_

**From: Je-maybe  
** _I can do that!_

**To: Je-maybe  
** _(˶′◡‵˶)_

Relief tickled through the skin of his forearms and he picked himself up from the floor, having not moved despite his dad making one more comment. He wasn’t wearing makeup—couldn’t be, but Jeno had seen him without it the first time they properly met, so how bad could it possibly go?

He shot Mark a warning text that he was leaving just in case he and Yukhei decided to stop by, and the text he got back in return was just a tiny “be careful.”

His mom, on the other hand, threw down her gardening gloves from her crouch when he called out the back door.

“You’re going out?” she clarified, eyes sharp in the midday sun.

“I finished my homework.” Jaemin raked his hair back from his eyes, trying to look honest and earnest (he was honest and desperate, which was close enough).

“And your chores?” his father shouted from around the corner, doing god knows what to the tomato plants.

Jaemin’s mind tumbled over the various things he did and he listed all of them in an attempt to be convincing. “Unloaded the dishwasher, dusted, swept and mopped,” he shouted back, praying he hadn't forgotten something because just four things sounded pathetically small.

A second passed, the sun reflecting back off the pavement and pool like it didn’t know how to stick.

“Fine,” his mother said. “Be back by dinner.”

* * *

The first six minutes of the walk were fine—the sun almost seemed warming rather than abusive, soothing his visible skin. Seven minutes in, he realized that wearing a black shirt was a very bad decision in light of having eaten absolutely nothing since the previous evening. His bag tapped against his hip as he rolled up his sleeves, fingertips grazing over the spots of yellow where his dad had grabbed him a few days prior.

It was a twenty-five minute walk if the traffic wasn’t insane, and so he spent approximately nineteen minutes sweating through his shirt, trying to imagine he wasn’t feeling light-headed. By the time he slunk into the coffee shop, he only had to collapse into a chair and put his head on the table before a cup of water was set down near his elbow.

“It’s a little hot out,” said the barista, and he lifted his head from his arms to flash her a smile, even if it was weak.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll order soon.”

She waved her tiny clipboard at him, shrugging off the obligation with a smile. He sipped from the cup she’d given and stretched his free arm over the top of the table to discourage anyone from sitting with him, peering at the art pieces on display.

There was a large one of a girl in a bath tub eating a whole fish raw in her bare hands, which wasn’t objectively the strangest thing he could imagine someone doing in their bath tub, but it was very difficult to relate. A different piece was a sculpture made of flattened and interlocked pennies in the shape of a small bonsai.

Up on the little stage, someone was playing guitar, mellow and unobtrusive—hardly performing if only because they melted into the shop like a sweet-fingered fixture rather than a bold dreamer. They wore a nametag, too, which just about gave them away.

“Jaemin.” Jeno’s voice came from behind, but he slipped into the chair across from him. He, too, wasn’t wearing a single bit of makeup, dressed in a simple dark tee and shorts and with a pair of glasses on his nose. It was a pretty, unexpected detail, though Jaemin had to wrinkle his nose at a different nuance.

“Were you drinking?”

Jeno froze, gaze flicking from the glass of water Jaemin had in one hand to his face. “What?”

“You smell like alcohol,” Jaemin said, and he did. He’d been expecting chlorine and deodorant, but he’d gotten a slight whiff of that sharp, distinct alcohol scent instead.

Jeno’s expression went slack, alarm so cleanly legible around his mouth and eyes, and he pinched the neck of his shirt between two fingers and lifted it to his nose. The motion was swift, but there was a flash of bruises on Jeno’s wrist and knuckles that caught Jaemin’s attention anyway. At his inhale, Jeno closed his eyes in something like pain. “I’m so sorry. I—forgot to change my shirt.”

“Was it a good party?” Jaemin teased, propping his chin on his palm and biting the rim of his cup.

“No,” Jeno said hurriedly. “I didn’t go to one. I don’t go to parties.” His words came out disjointed. A tinge of self-doubt pinched at Jaemin’s throat and kept him from swallowing. “I don’t drink,” Jeno said finally, voice dying slightly, “either.”

Jaemin blinked and took a sip from his cup, forcing it to go down because he couldn’t connect any dots if Jeno didn’t party or drink, yet smelled like alcohol. Maybe a spill?

Did it matter?

Why did he ask the question in the first place?

The breath between them started to stagnate before Jeno stood up again. “Did you order yet?”

“No,” Jaemin admitted, and glanced at the decorated blackboard to their right. “Surprise me?” he said in a willful effort to increase the gap between what had just happened and what he needed to happen _now_. Which was peace, distraction, an inch of the calm Jeno had so far given him. Discomfort, however, gnawed at his wrists, and he shoved regret far, far down his body all the way to his toes. They curled in his shoes.

Jeno hesitated. “Sweet or not?”

“Not,” Jaemin said, and tried to curb any tell that he wanted to run. Jeno turned and he watched him instead. Watched him readjust his glasses with his fingertips and pull his wallet from his pocket. The way he fiddled with some loose bills as he stared at the menu, body still and posture neat.

He couldn’t tell if he had stuck himself into a date or not—had no idea how to read Jeno’s actions up to this point, and wasn’t even sure if he wanted it. If either of them wanted it.

One time Jaemin had asked his mother what she would do if he turned out to be gay, and she’d looked up from her computer and said she’d kill him.

And if he liked Jeno, which he thought he might, he wasn’t sure it was fair to hide him away. It already wasn’t fair to hide himself away. 

Jeno returned with a pen and a napkin in hand, sat down in the chair, and without saying a word (except for a smile that bunched up his eyes), he wrote out in neat, perfect Hangul a message Jaemin could _not _read upside-down. He wasn’t that good of a Korean-American.

He rotated the napkin around and slid it across the table for him, then pressed the end of the pen to his lips. “Can you read it?”

_Thank you for inviting me,_ it said politely, and Jaemin’s chest burned as his heart drifted down to his stomach to weep like a feather.

“Yeah, I can read it,” Jaemin said, and held out his hand for the pen. Jeno gave it over, and Jaemin hovered his thumb over where his lips had been, thinking, hesitating, before writing in his shitty-ass handwriting (still in Hangul), _I’m sorry for asking that question._

Jeno took back the napkin, and his eyes scrunched, and he smiled something soft. “What question?”

* * *

The barista set a cold foam coffee in front of Jaemin and some sort of tea or lemonade in front of Jeno, and they both thanked her before she’d even placed a slice of loaf cake in front of Jaemin.

“Oh,” he said, feeling strangely stupid, and Jeno only smiled something unsure.

“You look tired,” he said by way of explanation, like he meant _not just coffee tired_, and it was true. Jeno had seen him cry once, though, and once was enough.

He sipped his coffee, and it wasn’t what he would have chosen, but it was a good, safe choice.

“What are the bruises from?” Jaemin asked despite knowing he locked up internally over anyone asking about his own.

Jeno looked at his knuckles and hummed. “Just guard. I’m trying higher tosses.”

He saw Jeno’s gaze snag over the yellow finger-marks on his forearm, but he said nothing. Jaemin sank. “Are you good?” he pressed despite drowning.

“I try to be,” Jeno said. “Can I try your coffee?”

Jaemin tried to breathe. “Sure.” He slid his mug over, and his breath stuttered and his eyes stung. “Jeno?”

Jeno looked, and he saw, and he cut off his inhale and stood up.

“I’m—” Jaemin tried amidst the room spinning and narrowing, his breath rising like tissue paper. He failed to finish the thought.

He let himself be led outside and collapsed into the embrace Jeno offered him as he clung to the shirt that smelled like alcohol and heaved out shredded breath after shredded breath, the world seizing and breaking and coalescing in dark, bleeding panic.

“Hey,” Jeno said, and his voice was close and cool, and his hands held steady to his back. “Hey. It might not be okay but it will be.”

Jaemin bit down hard on his lip, buried himself in Jeno’s neck, and tried to hold his body together while everything else shuddered apart. He was cold.

“When you can, breathe with me,” Jeno said, vice soft, and he repeated the words until they stuck.

“Okay.”

“When you can.”

“Okay.”

Jeno’s chest eased and rose under Jaemin’s scrunched palms and he tried to follow until he could fake obedience to this tiny, tiny request. He sagged, and Jeno caught him.

“I’m very bad at catching high tosses,” Jeno admitted, and Jaemin laughed because it was all he could think to do. “Can we go back inside?”

Jaemin nodded, and the ground felt, in a minuscule portion, a little steadier under his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologize for so little renmin if it weren't that there will be plenty of them later. 
> 
> This was a very difficult chapter for me to write, and I will admit that I have not read over it carefully. If you see any mistakes, please (I beg) let me know. There's a lot of subtlety at work in this chapter, and I hope you guys can glimpse a little of it.
> 
> Are you guys feeling okay? I'm sorry. If you can forgive me, please let me know your thoughts ;; I really appreciate how wonderful you guys have been in your support—it's meant the world to me.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	8. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are the details important, you ask?  
They are indeed.

**From: Full Sun  
** _ask them to noraebang  
_ _karaoke  
_ _whatever the fuck_

Renjun laughed and texted out a dry response (“you don’t have to translate” to which Donghyuck responded, “microphone bullshit!”).

“Hyuck-ah?” his mom asked, and nodded when Renjun gave her a thumbs up. _“How’s he doing?”_ She rummaged through the different bulk noodle packs in the first isle of the market, biting her thumb every once in a while whenever she couldn’t come to a decision.

_“About as well as I’m doing,”_ Renjun admitted. _“Terribly.”_

For that, his mom gave him a look and a hip check, and he almost ran into the clearance shelf trying not to laugh. _“Give yourself more credit, er zi ya. You seem to be pulling yourself together.”_

That made him sound like a slowly recovering disaster, and Renjun slouched in a frown as his mother snorted. She handed him a pack of vermicelli, and he put it in the basket before following her onward. It wasn’t _not_ true, but.

_“When is he coming?”_ she asked for the fifth time in the last two days.

_“Wednesday,”_ he said quickly nonetheless.

_“Right. What time?”_

Renjun rolled his eyes. _“In the evening. Five.”_

She narrowed her eyes at him. _“Did you just roll your eyes at me?”_

“No,” he said in English, and ducked past her into a different aisle to avoid her motherly exasperation. He’d been grocery shopping with his mother enough to know what things she would collect from which aisles and which things he could get away with for adding to the stockpile. He wished he knew what Jeno and Jaemin liked so he could pick up something small—his mom would never fault him that, even if she was pinched with their spending money.

They didn’t _need_ to be, precisely, but his mom would swear up and down that they were comfortable _because_ she was stingy, and Renjun couldn’t blame her for that idea. He had savings, too, just because he didn’t spend much of anything (if at all).

_“No Yakult,”_ his mother said, dumping some of her selections in his basket and making him dip dramatically under the weight.

_“It’s not Yakult! It’s off-brand,”_ Renjun defended, and slipped away from her attempt to wrestle it out from the bok choy she’d just slapped over it. 

She pinched her mouth at him, and he pinched his back. She sighed, he sighed back. She pointed at him in irritation, _“Your father says you get this sass from me.”_ and he just laughed.

* * *

As he climbed into the car after loading the back seat, he blurted, _“Can I go out for karaoke with two of my friends?”_ before his mom could turn the key.

In the next beat, she said, _“Doesn’t the nearest one serve alcohol?”_

He stared at her. She stared back, blinking only once. _“I have no idea,”_ he admitted.

She turned the key. _“You wouldn’t drink anyway.”_

_“I might.”_

_“You won’t.”_

Renjun put on his seatbelt, obedient without prompting as his mom started the car. _“Do I know them?” _she asked, pulling out so close to some white lady’s mini-van Renjun almost braced himself.

_“No. But they’re in band with me,” _he gritted out instead. Jesus fuck he needed to get his license soon.

_“Are either of them blond?”_

_“No?” _he said, but dread filled his stomach because he was near positive he knew where this was going.

There was a sly lilt to her voice when she said, _“You have a thing for blond boys.”_

_“Ma!” _he shouted. _“I do not!”_

He had had a thing for _one_ blond boy, who had also happened to be incredibly white, and his mom had not stopped teasing him since. _“They’re Korean,” _he said, bodily suppressing the urge to cross his arms over his chest.

_“Both of them?” _She laughed._ “Are Chinese boys not good enough for you? First Donghyuck, now this.”_

Renjun flinched as she cut off another car while pulling out of the parking lot. He resisted the urge to wave in apology. _“If they were Chinese, then you could talk fluently with them.”_

_“I would.”_

_“You definitely would.”_

* * *

**To: Jeno Lee, Jaemin Na  
** _are you two up for karaoke?  
_ _tonight or tomorrow?  
_ _I told Jaemin we should go sometime_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Tomorrow sounds amazing~!!  
_ _I have to help my mom with dinner tonight though ・゜(。┰ω┰。).・゜  
_ _Lemme ask my parents and I’ll get back to you ASAP~ (ㅅ´ ˘ `)_

**From: Jeno Lee  
** _I can do tomorrow too  
_ _Is that okay?_

**To: Jeno Lee, Jaemin Na  
** _for sure  
_ _it’s only that one place open on Sundays if your parents are okay w it serving alcohol_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _lmao either of you have an ID?_

**To: Jeno Lee, Jaemin Na  
** _not what I meant jfsklfjslsd_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _♡ ♡ ♡_ _ my parents would skin me alive if they found out anyway (´。＿。｀)_

**To: Jeno Lee, Jaemin Na  
** _♥_

Renjun slumped down on the living room couch and keeled over to stuff his face in one of the squashy pillows. He wasn’t sure why texting them both had been so stressful—well, he was fairly sure he knew why, but that should have helped him manage it rather than impede the entire process.

He groaned into the cloth and let his phone drop over the edge of the armrest, okay with the dull clunk of it hitting the carpet.

_“Er zi ya, is that you or a dramatic ferret?”_

_“Ma…” _he complained, enduring her self-amused chuckle at her (bad) joke. He fiddled with the bandaids on his fingers, stretching slowly to occupy the entire couch while she added some new rice in the cooker. 

_“Lao gong, we have a wild ferret in our living room!”_

_“Ma!”_

_“A what?” _his father called from the office down the hallway.

_“Ferret!”_

_“Can’t have that.” _When Renjun heard the office door close and his dad’s heavy feet, he rolled off the couch and scrambled to dash for the stairs. His dad had the advantage, though, because had one slipper off and pegged him in the thigh before he even properly stood up.

“Ow! Ah—_no!”_

_“I caught it!” _his father cried, arms bunched around Renjun’s waist as he tried to twist and bite his dad on the shoulder.

_“Oh good.”_

_“It’s kind of skinny,” _he grunted as he bodily tossed Renjun (loudly protesting Renjun) back onto the couch and tugged the throw blanket around his body like a scratchy net.

_“Not my problem. I make good dinners.”_

_“What are you mak—ow! Little biter, this one.”_

Renjun glared up at his twinkling eyes, trying desperately to look upset rather than fighting the laughter convulsing in his stomach and chest.

_“I got you,” _his dad said, smug as he sat on top of him on the couch and rubbed the bite mark out of his forearm.

Renjun huffed, but couldn’t fight the smile anymore, and his dad’s face split into the widest grin he owned. Apparently that was his cue to ruffle Renjun’s hair straight to hell. _“_There’s_ my son!”_

_“Oh my god, stop!”_

* * *

Jaemin followed up after dinner with a set time he could manage to go with them—they had about two and a half hours, and that wasn’t too bad considering Renjun’s mom volunteered to cart them around.

It was terrifying in some ways, of course, because Renjun considered his mom nosey and too charming (“You got none of that,” said his sister, “but neither did I, so.”). He wouldn’t put it past her to brush up on particular English words just to ask the worst possible questions she was capable of, and he had to be honest: he didn’t know either Jeno or Jaemin well enough to know how that would go.

Even biking, though, would take thirty minutes on average for each of them, and Renjun had to cut his losses.

* * *

That night, he painted with his sister again. While she worked on a piece for university, he just used the process for his usual catharsis—color, broad shapes and strokes, only vague depictions of real things. 

"What is it this time?" she asked. She held her paintbrush between her teeth and squeezed out more acrylic blue. They always painted in the kitchen where the tiles were and the music slunk across the ground peacefully, the space open and wide rathe than closed in. 

Their father hummed along on the living room couch, the two rooms loosely attached, book above his eyes. If he fell asleep, it would thwack him in the face audibly and he'd splutter around the pages. Renjun knew this because it had happened before.

His mother was tucked under his legs, writing in her journal with her myriad of colored pens. 

This wasn't a ritual, per se—they certainly didn't do this nightly or even weekly necessarily. But where two of them were, the others tended to gather, and they could all respect the equilibrium of peace.

"I'm..." Renjun breathed, swirling just the tip of his flat paintbrush in the color of grapefruit flesh. "...upset." His sister hummed, and he swallowed the rising emotion just so he could talk. "Someone in my section—" That was it. That was as far as he could go before the room went kind of woozy and unfocused.

Renjun shrugged, trying to recenter but struggling to get his heart rate to calm as quickly as it had disrupted itself. "I don't know yet."

"Then we'll see," his sister said, and focused more on the bog she was adding details to on her canvas. "I look forward to it."

* * *

It ended up being a butterfly with its wings ripped off.

When he was six, one of his classmates had told him that she liked to capture and de-wing butterflies so the spiders could feed. She would watch the suffering body struggle as its hunter closed in.

She had said this with a monarch in her hand, its tissue wings opening and closing slowly like a sleepy blink.

He'd burst into tears and pulled her hair so hard she startled and the butterfly flew away.

That had been his first visit to the principal's office, but he hadn't minded.

He wasn't sure if he was the butterfly in this situation, or if Sarwendah was, but by the time he painted the last dark brown line of its removed wingtip, he figured it didn't matter so long as he wasn't the girl.

* * *

In the morning, Renjun slid into his sister's bathroom with just his socks and pants on, and before his sister could gripe, he said, "Can you do my makeup?"

"Can I do your _what_?" his sister asked, and nearly poked herself in the eye with her mascara wand. "Since when do you wear makeup?"

"I don't," Renjun pressed. "I don't, but I'm going out with friends who do and like, I don’t know. If I don't like what you do I can just wipe it off, right?"

She slipped the wand back into the tube with its odd sucking sound and set it down on the counter. It almost immediately rolled onto the floor. "Christ, though. Could you not put a shirt on?"

Renjun opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. "Wouldn't the makeup get on my shirt?"

"Do you see _me_ going shirtless?"

He stared at her. She looked at him like he was an idiot. A moment passed. "Sometimes," he sniped, then dashed to go do as she suggested, disallowing her the narrow opportunity to pelt him with a brush.

* * *

When he did finally sit down in front of her, legs tangled up in the bars of the stool he dragged up from the kitchen, he found he didn't mind the feeling. It was kind of like getting his face gently prodded at and mildly shoved around. If a stranger were doing it, he thought maybe it would have been unbearable, but his sister had been prodding and shoving him around for sixteen years, now, and it was definitely something he could manage. 

She’d asked him what colors he was comfortable with first—if he was okay with purple or not, and all he could think of was the red Jeno had used on Friday and the way it had made him look like he’d been crying. (“You’re wearing cream so like…eggplant,” she said, and the only response he had was, “Sure.”)

When she was done, she poked him in the middle of his forehead with the hard end of her brush. "What do you think?"

He resisted the urge to rub at the spot and stood up to squint against the light. "Huh," he said, and saw his sister quirk her eyebrow at him in the mirror. "I don't look like me. Like I do, but I don't."

"Your vocabulary stuns me," she said, and started to pack her things back into her drawers. "Do you like it or not? I have makeup remover."

"Do _you_ like it?" he asked instead of answering, because frankly he wasn't sure. It was very strange, but he figured it was like a new haircut—it took some getting used to. She hadn’t gone too vivid with the purple. It was kind of dark but also soft, and she’d done something neat to his waterline earlier and the very corner of his eyes.

"I do, yeah," she said. "It makes my baby brother look almost intimidating." He would have been insulted by that if she hadn't said it with such great satisfaction (he also thought the least of his issues was not being intimidating enough given Linnie told him outright that he was scaring the children). “What’s got you anxious about these friends, anyway?”

Renjun paused to reassess, fingers coming up to rearrange his hair because he didn’t have an answer to that. Calling him anxious didn’t seem right, and yet he’d stared at his ceiling for a good half hour that morning just trying to figure out how everything would go. Would they spend all their time there or would they get tired? Bored? What food could they go to if they got hungry? Did the place serve food? He couldn’t remember, and even if he did, it would probably be overpriced. What if Jeno did his makeup Like That again?

“Do you want me to do your hair, too?” she suggested gently, having watched his silence for the two breaths he hadn’t been able to give an answer.

“Does it look bad?” he asked, tugging at his forelock, and she nudged his hand away.

“No.” She lifted herself onto the bathroom counter and he noticed the open back of her shirt for the first time. She had a mole on her shoulder blade. “You don’t ever look bad, Injunnie. The makeup and stuff is just smoke and lights. Fun, but not necessary. Not for you.”

He caught his own eyes in the mirror again and traced the colors there. She’d made his face a little brighter somehow, so smoke and lights indeed. “It’s just two boys. They’re in band with me,” he said finally. “I think I like them. Both.” He was out to his entire family, so the gender wouldn’t throw her, but—

His sister’s expression stuttered almost imperceptibly, and she froze before she pushed onwards. “Are they nice to you? They don’t—they’re not mean?”

Renjun shook his head and fiddled with his fingers, lowering himself to sit on the stool again. “Not yet.” She breathed in slow, but had nothing to say, gaze flickering out of focus. “_Can_ you do my hair?”

She shook herself out a little and beamed at him. “Sure can.”

* * *

His mother raised her eyebrows at him when he made his way downstairs, and he tried not to hide from whatever would come next. _“You sure neither of them are blond, er zi ya?”_

_“Ma,”_ he said, feeling empathy for that poor, dead horse getting beaten so ruthlessly, and tripped over to the front door with his shoes in hand. His sister had convinced him to wear his black jeans rather than anything else, which freed him up to wear his converse to balance out all the formality.

_“You look like a new winter,”_ his mom said, and Renjun barely resisted putting his face in his hands in fond embarrassment—the hardest part about wearing makeup (though it wasn’t a full face) was making sure he didn’t mess any of it up. His sister had spent too much patient time doing a nice wing for him.

His mom joined him in the entry to switch out her own shoes and grab her keys. She drifted a hand between his shoulder blades as he tied his laces and it eased some of the tension he was working hard to ignore. _“Do you have their addresses?”_

He nodded and stood up. He still startled just a little when he remembered how small his mom was when she stood next to him.

“Off we go, now!” she said in English, turning on the enthusiasm, and he laughed as he trailed behind her. Jesus, maybe she really did brush up on embarrassing things to say.

* * *

Jeno was farthest, but nearest to the karaoke place, so Jaemin was first.

Renjun didn’t even get a chance to get out of his mom’s car before Jaemin was out his front door, shoes not quite on but smile out and ready. In fact, Renjun hardly got a chance to even look at his _house_ he got distracted so quickly by how Jaemin looked slipping into the backseat, out of breath.

“Hello, ma’am!” he blurted to his mother and bent in a courteous bow as he tried to jerk on his shoes. To Renjun’s dismay, he wasn’t wearing a scratch of makeup. He looked exhausted but so, so damn bright that Renjun wasn’t sure what to do. “My name is Jaemin. I play saxophone.”

“Ooh,” his mother said, and smiled brightly. Renjun could feel her trying to catch his eye and he would _not _let her do that. Then again, maybe if he’d shot her a warning glare she wouldn’t have said what she said next. “A sexy instrument, yes?”

Jaemin froze, one finger crooked in the back of his shoe, and then laughed so loud Renjun flinched (he was already blushing so hard he might have laughed along on instinct alone). “Yes!”

“Ma,” Renjun said miserably, and Jaemin turned to smile at him, giggles subsiding and then stopping completely.

“Oh! Oh wow,” Jaemin said, and if Renjun wasn’t blushing before, he certainly was now as Jaemin looked over his face and hair. “You look amazing. Wow. I mean you always look—look nice, but this is. Is really cool. Wow.” And Jaemin was blushing too, fumbling distractedly with his seatbelt. “I feel really gross now. I should have—”

“No!” Renjun interrupted, desperate to stop this train of thought, but anything mean about Jaemin’s own self especially. “No, you’re fine! You look great. You look fine.”

Jaemin laughed, and his ears were pink, and he properly got his seatbelt working just as Renjun’s mom started driving around the cul de sac out of the neighborhood. She was driving a lot more carefully than normal, which said a lot about how much she cared for her son’s life in general. “Thanks.”

His mom was smiling.

Renjun was somewhere on the cusp of death.

* * *

Jaemin conversed with Renjun’s mom while she drove to Jeno’s, talking about miscellaneous things that Renjun didn’t even know (Jaemin was born in Montana, his dad was a banker and his mom worked on the neighborhood council, he wanted to be a social worker when he was older, he liked to dance but hadn’t done any of it since joining band, he could also play clarinet), and Jaemin’s hand was curled on the middle seat between them. He leaned forward as they talked, body language intent on his mother and smile so bright Renjun didn’t even mind that his mother was a better conversationalist than he’d ever been.

“Oh wow,” Jaemin said again when they pulled up to the gates of Jeno’s neighborhood—it was that one neighborhood. The one where there was an actual guard out front that had a list of expected visitors they’d been told in advance, and Renjun’s mother had to give over her name and where she was going in order to be let through. “Did you know…?” Jaemin looked at Renjun, but all he had for an answer was a shake of his head.

“I don’t know a lot,” he admitted, trying not to sound sheepish (although he was).

“That’s okay,” Jaemin said, and laughed, and Renjun was hit with the notion that Jaemin was a lot more lively than he usually was despite the bruises under his eyes. He supposed the weekend could change a lot of things.

It took another minute or two to pull up to Jeno’s address, the entirety of which was spent in peaceful quiet as his mother turned up the radio music just slightly. The neighborhood was beautiful in a very planned way, the houses large and impressive while a little staunch. 

Jeno did _not _burst out of the front door, so both Jaemin and he had time to check the house number five times and walk up to the front together. 

“These are hydrangeas,” Jaemin pointed out, fingertips drifting along one of the ones that were blue—they sat in an opposing pot flanking the front door, the other set of hydrangeas more of a purple. “My mom likes the white ones.”

“Do you like flowers?” Renjun asked, reaching for the doorbell. It played a tune rather than a loud buzzing sound, and he was tempted to push it again.

“Sometimes,” Jaemin said. “I like marigolds.”

It took a bit of time before there was the muffled sound of someone coming down the stairs, and then there was Jeno. He opening up the door and slid through the gap, pulling out a set of keys to lock the door behind him. 

Renjun, though, was kind of trying to process that his mom would never, ever let him live.

To be fair, Jaemin seemed to be choking on the very air he was supposed to be breathing.

“Hey guys,” Jeno said, beaming bright.

“Right,” Jaemin said, numb.

Jeno was blond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> Okay. To be real, I personally needed a chapter like this after Jaemin's, so I hope everyone enjoyed this one. You guys have been so supportive and it's making some of the harder themes a lot easier to write—for that I'm grateful.
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts! I really, really love hearing from all of you ;;
> 
> Thanks to Becca and Ivy for the help ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	9. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sav made a fanart for this chapter AGES ago and I simply kept forgetting to link it. [This one](https://twitter.com/yuzuzuyu1/status/1205623972458401792?s=20), like all of the art Sav makes, is absolutely breathtaking.

After a moment of sheer mental paralysis, Jaemin shook himself out and smiled. “It’s a great color on you.” Or lack of color. He was both jealous and stunned, which was an awkward combination he was ill-equipped to manage, so he defaulted to appreciation.

“Thank you,” Jeno said. He put his keys in the front pocket of his jeans.

“Why?” Renjun simply said, then went so red Jaemin would have suspected he choked on something. “Why blond?”

Jeno gave a confused, hiccup-y laugh as he made the first step toward Renjun’s family car. “Chenle said I’d look good.”

“You do!” Renjun sounded baffled, offended, alarmed—Jaemin wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was very funny. Renjun’s bewilderment made it a lot easier to forget he was the only one who looked like a crumpled paper bag among them. It was fine. 

“That’s good,” Jeno said, eyes crinkling with emotions equally complex, but still in a smile. He was wearing dark jeans and a slim-fit t-shirt in green. His makeup was subtle and pink-grey. Jaemin struggled between attempting to ignore it and wanting to remain entranced.

Most of all, he struggled not to hate himself.

When they slid into the backseat, Renjun elected to be in the middle by virtue of his shoulders alone, but Jeno still managed to squeeze out an offered hand to Renjun’s mother.

“Thank you for driving us,” Jeno said, and Renjun tried to keep his thighs from touching either of theirs. Jaemin decided not to press himself against the car door, only excusing himself when he had to encroach very much into Renjun’s personal space to put on his seatbelt.

He took some comfort in the fact that Renjun had decided to remain in the back with them instead of opting for the front seat.

“Why karaoke?” Renjun’s mother asked as she pulled out of the driveway. Her accent was charmingly thick, but clear enough. “Who was smart?”

“Renjun,” Jaemin said in the same way he might say _your son, ma’am_, and smiled at the satisfaction in her face. “I said I didn’t sing and he—”

“Didn’t like that?” she said, smile schooled into something reserved perhaps for Renjun’s sake.

“No.” Jaemin tried not to laugh because Renjun was enduringly pink in the face, but utterly mute.

“Do you sing?” his mother asked, looking into the rearview mirror and straight at Jeno.

“Not much,” Jeno admitted, and relief uncinched something weird and difficult in Jaemin’s chest.

“You will like Renjun’s voice,” she said, and Jaemin couldn’t laugh—it was rude for one of the few interactions he’d had with Renjun. The boy looked like he was dying. “It is beautiful.”

“Ma,” Renjun said, so quiet it could have been replaced with a wheeze.

Jaemin didn’t think Jeno was quite aware of how bright his own expression was in that moment, looking as he was at Renjun’s expression of mortification. His gaze flicked to lock with Jaemin’s and turned warm. It still seemed just as fond.

Jaemin exhaled and smiled back.

* * *

Renjun’s mom dropped them off without much concern or hassle, just quipping out a, “Be good! Be safe!” from the open door and waiting in the parking lot for five minutes before leaving.

Jaemin bit his tongue to avoid saying something telling like, “That was easy,” or “Is she always like that?” Instead, his stomach pinched and he determined to pretend that his parents, too, would have done the same for him.

The karaoke place was old, but kept up from sheer demand and popularity alone. Their area had a significant minority of East Asians, so anyone be damned if the place got shut down. They served just about anything wrapped in laver—kimbap and temaki being the prime temptations—along with various other things. Edamame was a strong siren’s call and presumed accompaniment for any and all visitors.

Before Renjun could even move to bring out his own wallet, Jeno had his out, thumb sliding his card out in a fast flick like he was anxious to step in. “I can pay. If you don’t mind. Your mom drove us here.”

Renjun stood with his lips parted, but Jeno wasn’t following through, seemingly waiting for consent. “Please? I don’t mind,” Jeno tried, and Renjun almost visibly snapped out of whatever headspace he’d gone to.

“Sure, yeah. Okay,” he said, and honestly Jaemin still wasn’t sure _what_ mood Renjun was exhibiting, but it was entirely relatable.

Jeno fiddled with his card, looking relieved but still not moving. “Do we want anything to eat?”

“Oh,” Renjun said. 

Jaemin laughed a little as he stepped forward to nab a menu printout, glancing over the options if only because it had been a while since he’d accompanied Mark and Yukhei. Even with them, he was reluctant to sing, but they’d wrangled a few songs out of him from sheer supportive determination alone.

“Just get edamame and…” Jaemin flashed the menu at Renjun, waiting for his mind to blurt something out.

“Inarizushi?”

“Nice,” Jaemin agreed, and Jeno’s smile was still so pretty Jaemin was considering immunity to it rather impossible. He badly wanted to forget he was the only one in company who wasn’t made up—it stung—but god the two of them looked amazing.

Jeno paid and ordered, and they all followed the worker to the open room. Arriving in the afternoon saved them the need to reserve a room in advance, making it a lot easier to accept that they were venturing into a karaoke expedition during the daytime.

“You both look really good, by the way,” Jeno said as he moved into the room. It smelled mildly (and expectedly) like sweat.

“Thank you,” Renjun said simultaneous to Jaemin saying, “I look like shit.”

The look Jeno sent him burned in a way, and Jaemin wanted to squirm out of his skin. “You’ve never looked like shit a day in your life,” he said.

He wanted to vanish into his clothes, but grappled his way into the room and plopped down on the couch, wordless, trying to sort out the crippling emotion of being cowed and praised at the same time. Jeno let him suffocate in peace, asking Renjun if he’d done his makeup himself.

“No, my sister did it for me,” Renjun said, and stalled in some thought process he refused to voice.

“It’s kind of strange because I’m not used to it, but,” Jeno said, “I think it looks nice. I haven’t tried anything purple yet.”

Something in Renjun relaxed, and Jaemin crinkled the edge of the music choice pages he’d reached for as he tried to compute what was happening. What thoughts was Jeno privy to and how could he reach them? How was it he knew exactly what to say _constantly_?

Jaemin flipped through the book—through hundreds of crammed IDs—but wasn’t actually seeing much.

“You do your own makeup, right?” Renjun settled close to him. Closer than Jaemin expected him to. He smelled like white tea. “Jaemin, you do too?”

His head snapped up on its own accord, looking right at Renjun like he’d yanked him by the tongue. “Yes. Yeah. I do. I’m terrible at it.”

“No you’re not,” Jeno said, and settled down next to Renjun, but farther than Renjun had sat next to Jaemin. He propped his chin in his hand with his soft pink eyeshadow and styled blond hair. “Have you found a song?”

Jaemin had forgotten he was holding the booklet, which he could forgive himself for because Jeno wasn’t letting him be and it was horrifying. He shot him a bare, pleading look and Jeno had the audacity to raise his eyebrows. “No,” Jaemin said. “I don’t—I don’t want to go first.” He bit down on the honest bid to admit that he wasn’t a good singer, because by the record, Jeno wouldn’t let it fly.

“What if you don’t want to go second or last, either?” Renjun reasoned, but took the book from him anyway. He seemed to know the pages well, flipping to the Chinese selections like they’d been imperceptibly dogeared. “Karaoke’s not about singing well, really.” He slid the book onto the table and grabbed up the remote to punch in his number. “But I intend to.”

Jeno laughed and shifted toward the back of the couch with bright anticipation twisted into his mouth, and Renjun stood to grab the bulky microphone off the shelf by the display.

The television flickered to the right selection and requested he hit play when ready, the title big above it in slices of Chinese script. Jaemin had never heard Renjun speak in his mother tongue—hadn’t heard Jeno either for Korean (just saw his neat handwriting on a cafe napkin). Where Jeno had leaned back, Jaemin leaned forward, focusing up on Renjun’s face and how it tinted with the colors from the screen.

Renjun’s speaking voice just barely edged into a sweet huskiness, textured in a way that made his words interesting—or at least…that’s what Jaemin had found as he’d spent this last week of lunches with him.

His singing voice, on the other hand, was clearer than he expected, and better than he’d been prepared for, and on-pitch and confident, the lower notes soft, and Jaemin instinctively curled into himself with his fingers clutching his shirt at his belly. Mandarin was strange to him, hearing it only in glances. He heard his own language only with slightly more frequency, his parents strong-arming English into their home with a will strong enough to kill a garden.

Renjun’s language was beautiful with its hush-hush consonants and tilting vowels, he decided, having never paid enough attention before. The song itself was pretty too, but Renjun was the best part, probably, because the notes he sang resonated through his body like a sun lamp had flipped on in his blood.

If he glanced over to Jeno, he’d chosen to close his eyes every so often, soaking it in, then flicking his eyes open to refocus on Renjun.

Things floated, in a way. He didn’t expect this from a karaoke trip.

Renjun broke through the end with a sigh and a glowing, expectant smile, and Jaemin snapped to the action of clapping on sheer commanded instinct alone. Jeno offered the same, but tilted his head. “What are the lyrics about?”

“It’s a song by Hu Xia,” Renjun said, then hesitated, rolling the microphone between his palms. Jaemin looked at the pink dusting his neck, unsure if it was an illusion from the screen or a blush. “He’s talking about how he wishes he could go back to high school. When he was in love.”

“It was really pretty,” Jeno said freely. “Do you take voice lessons?”

Renjun shook his head, muted, now, by what he’d already said.

Jaemin scooted forward in his seat and took in a breath. “You sing super well. Can you sing my songs, too?”

The laugh he earned from Renjun dragged an exhale from Jaemin he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He wasn’t sure he’d heard Renjun laugh before. He struggled to inhale after letting that one go.

“Have either of you dated? Yet?” Renjun asked, moving to settling the microphone down on the coffee table. 

Jeno was the first to shake his head. “I took a girl to a dance last year after she asked me to,” he said. He offered his hand for the microphone instead, and Renjun rerouted his action to place it in Jeno’s palm. Jaemin could imagine Jeno dressed for a dance—makeup and ripped jeans and his hair styled up.

“Not really,” Jaemin said. All kinds of words welled up at the back of his tongue, but he was fighting to find his feet and couldn’t think of a way to say any of them without falling desperately into embarrassment. _I wouldn’t mind dating you. Either of you. Both of you._ He knotted his hands together and thought himself assuredly stupid, because he wasn’t going anywhere new. It was still the same issues, the same barriers, and—

“Me neither,” Renjun said, much more confident again, and Jaemin could feel his insides crinkle because he _did_ like them and wasn’t sure he could do anything about it.

Jeno looked ready to say something else, but it didn’t matter whether Jaemin dreaded or wanted it, because Jeno was startled by his phone pinging, interrupting himself. The door also rattled with the knock from the food service, and Jaemin jumped up to receive the edamame and inarizushi.

“Enjoy,” the waiter said, and when Jaemin turned around, Jeno was biting the nail of his thumb and looking conflicted as he read a text from his phone, and Renjun was flipping through the booklet.

“What’s wrong?” Jaemin asked, wrestling his mind away from the worst assumptions.

Jeno glanced up, eyes crinkling in something like regret, or pain, or doubt, and Jaemin realized his hands were so incredibly sweaty and had been all afternoon so far. “Chenle says I should rap,” Jeno said around his thumb, then sighed as he turned his phone off completely.

“Oh my god,” Renjun said, nose crinkling in something curious but sadistic enough that Jaemin nearly missed the table when trying to set down the food. “Do it.”

Jeno gazed at Renjun, smiling a little, then looked at Jaemin, who was trying still to not feel like a deer in headlights. “I’m not…” he sighed, “terrible?”

“Don’t do it if you’re good. I’m already dying,” Jaemin admitted, then stuffed an inarizushi in his mouth before he came up with more shit to say.

Jeno’s laugh still sounded the same—a little huffy, a little silly—and god all of Jaemin’s reliable body functions were becoming truants. “Please don’t let me kill you,” Jeno said, to which Jaemin could only reply with, “Christ” around a mouthful of tofu and rice.

Renjun offered the booklet back to him, and as Jeno flipped through, Renjun picked up an edamame pod and pinched the peas out of their casing. He settled down on the couch between the two of them, still closer to Jaemin, and Jaemin _still_ had no idea what was happening, but he got another tiny hint of white tea, and these two boys were really getting to his head. 

“Do you guys know Kendrick Lamar?” Jeno said, smile so unsure.

“Shit,” Renjun laughed. “Are you serious right now?”

Jeno looked almost guilty as he pushed himself to a stand and leaned for the controller. “I memorized it last year, I think. I can’t remember.” He plugged in his numbers and the television flickered to his selection.

_Press play to start!_ said the screen right under “DNA.” by Kendrick Lamar, and Renjun threw his legs up onto the couch to hug his knees and bite the cloth of jeans.

“I don’t know if I want you to fuck up or kill this,” Renjun said.

“Well, I might suffocate near the end,” Jeno murmured and pressed play.

The song launched in as soon as the countdown hit zero, and Jeno didn’t even miss the first “I got” in the song.

“Oh my god,” Renjun squeaked as Jeno hit the flow, and honestly, dear god—Jaemin had never heard rap outside of Yukhei and Mark’s favored tracks, so it was a different experience entirely to hear Jeno’s voice navigate the words. He drew out consonants in a way, dipping into the dissonance and lifting with a certain beginner’s shyness when he broke for air, but he was dark and mellow in a way the original wasn’t.

There was something so incredibly embarrassing and overwhelming about his (crushes, yes, probably, god) slip into these songs like a second skin and own them.

It was worse when the climax broke and Jeno didn’t breathe for about a minute, probably, and hearing him swear was a contrarian’s religious experience, and his eyes were scrunched like he didn’t just he didn’t say “sex, money, murder” in a string. He kept along, and gasped when he could with a hidden laugh, and it was part charming and part impressively intimidating, because the parts he did seriously were locked on like a sniper to a target.

When the song ended, it did so abruptly, and Jeno set down the mic like he was opting out of applause. Before Renjun could even open his mouth, Jeno said, “I can’t do it justice. And he has those lines about imitation and race—”

“Jeno, you’re in a private room,” Jaemin blurted, heart beating as aggressively as the song. “It’s fine. Holy shit.”

Jeno blushed, and it was only when his eyes flicked between the two of them that Jaemin realized Renjun’s shoulder was touching his. 

All the world was white noise, even as Renjun said something about being amazing or something. Which Jaemin could agree with, but he was currently startled out of bodily existing, so mental processes would have to wait.

“Your turn,” said Renjun, and faced him, and Jaemin looked down at him and said, “My what?” like a dumbass.

Renjun laughed and leaned away, and he was brighter than Jaemin had ever seen him at school, and he witnessed the little quirk of his lips as he reached for another edamame. “Your _turn_, Jaemin.”

“I think I’d rather not,” he said, watching as Jeno once again settled a little further from them (but it was closer, and Jaemin was relieved).

“We’re doing this so you can sing,” Renjun said, expression brilliant and sly despite being so blatant.

“I’m not good.” Jaemin could feel Jeno’s eyes on him and avoided contact deliberately. “You’re going to be disappointed.”

“Try it,” Renjun said, and _nudged_ his shoulder with his edamame-free hand, and Jaemin clung to his will to live. “If it looks like we hate it, you can stop and you never have to sing again. You can’t get worse than Jeno saying ‘dad’ instead of ‘dead.’”

“Shit,” Jeno said, and laughed, nestling himself into the corner of the couch. “You noticed.”

Jaemin let out a shaky breath around a weak smile. “Give me a sec to find something,” he said, and almost locked up when he had to reach across Renjun to reach the flip book. He smelled like white tea, and the more he noticed it, the more he liked it. 

Renjun asked Jeno about rap as Jaemin thumbed through the more recently added pages. They had a pretty messy system, ordering any recent additions by month of release where everything else was a wild conglomeration of music. Their inventory was robust, however, and perhaps occasionally illegal. He remembered Yukhei spending an ironic ten minutes straight trying to find the 2MINUTE songs last time they’d visited.

It took a bit for him to recognize a song he thought might be alright, and it took him two tries to punch in the right number.

“Oh,” Renjun said. “I don’t know this guy.”

“I like Jeremy Zucker,” Jaemin said, but in truth, the song he chose was mild enough that his reedy voice might pass through unharmed. “His songs are nice.”

He would have forgotten the mic entirely if Renjun hadn’t handed it straight to him, and he held it with both hands as the song started.

Immediately, he missed the starting notes and burned as he stood facing the screen. “Sorry,” he said, heart scrambling.

“It’s okay,” Renjun said, and Jaemin caught the tail end of the second line of lyrics.

> _—angels circling_
> 
> _I could see everything you ever wanted me to be_
> 
> _I see oceans in your eyes_
> 
> _It makes me scared_
> 
> _So if we both drown…_

His voice shook around the notes he ended up catching, but he eventually stumbled into the rhythm and melody almost entirely by accident. To his relief, he came through stronger on the lines that actually mattered to him.

> _So yeah, I’m scared_
> 
> _But I won’t let it get to me._

At some point, he looked over his shoulder, and Renjun made a motion for him to keep going, smile close-lipped but soft. Jeno…Jeno looked almost queasy, but flashed a bright smile when Jaemin looked for his approval.

Some notes came out more like a whisper, and his voice bent a little too much on the ones he strained on, but he miraculously didn’t hear his voice crack. When the song ended, he pressed the microphone to his chest and stared at them both.

“I like your voice a lot, Jaemin,” Renjun said, cross-legged on the couch. “I think you should be more confident with the next one. You’re better than you think.” His eyes were bright in the blue lighting of the television.

“It’s a nice song,” Jeno said, taking his unofficial turn, “and at no point did I think you were bad. If you’d be okay singing again, I’d like that.” For the first time, he reached for something to eat on the table.

“Should we cycle through?” Jaemin suggested, heart too weak to try again so soon. He didn’t feel like they were lying, though, which made things a little easier.

“Sure,” Renjun said, perking up a little. “I have another up my sleeve.” He reached for the mic, and Jaemin almost dropped it when their fingers brushed. “Do you guys know Conan Gray?”

“Nope,” Jeno said, brightening slowly, and Jaemin had never met someone so hard to read. Jaemin shook his head in negatory agreement, scooting into the place Renjun abandoned just for the warmth he left behind. “Show us?” Jeno said, and if Renjun’s neck blushed, it could have been a trick of the light again.

The song Renjun picked next was not a ballad, and Jaemin bit his lip at the beat, then almost kicked the table when the first word was “crush.”

He chose another love song.

God.

And like, most songs were about love, but.

The chorus was petrifying, too, because even if Renjun wasn’t being deliberate, he was really rolling the dice perfectly.

_You like me, oh, obviously, _he sang, like Jaemin was a book he picked up off the street.

When the song was over, Jeno was bright with appreciation and something like amusement. “Your majesty,” he said, “you truly are the best of us.”

Renjun laughed, expression twisting into something conflicted, and looked like he was thinking about throwing the mic at Jeno. “Oh, fuck off.”

“No,” Jeno said, but reached for the mic. “I’m going to try Jay Park.”

When Renjun plopped down next to Jaemin, he didn’t even try to leave some distance. “Ooh, Korean?”

“Most of this one, yeah,” Jeno said. “My dad and I talk in it sometimes.” He punched in the number, seemingly already having known this one. “Pray for my stamina.”

The song started with only a little more intro than “DNA.” before the lyrics popped up onscreen in Hangul and the romanizations.

“Jesus,” Jaemin murmured when Jeno rolled into the flow and managed to stay atop it. He stumbled with this one more than he had with the previous song, but Korean coming off his tongue was _pretty,_ and Jaemin curled into Renjun without caring, really, watching the gleam and glow and Jeno fit breaths between bars.

“Breathe!” Renjun called when Dok2’s part came in, and Jeno shook his head even though his face was getting a little red. 

When the song ended, it was with a fit of what could only be giggles from Jeno and he gasped in oxygen. “God!” 

Renjun gave a quiet cheer and clapped, and Jaemin hiccuped laughter into Renjun’s narrow shoulder. “Your turn again, Jaemin-ah,” Jeno said, offering the mic over, and he glimmered at the Korean addendum. 

Jaemin took the mic much easier this time. “Can I do Linkin Park?” he asked, reaching for the flip book and finding the American L’s.

“I haven’t heard Linkin Park in ages,” Renjun said, and pushed Jaemin off the couch and to a stand, hand on his lower back. Jaemin flushed, but found his song and put in his number.

The song strained a little on his voice at the beginning, but Jeno managed to shout out a “Caught in the undertow” at the right parts, making Jaemin laugh right before the chorus. Renjun joined on the second repeat, and it turned into less of Jaemin’s solo and more them part-yelling into the mic whenever Jaemin positioned it over the table.

After Linkin Park came a disaster of different songs—some gone solo and others just dog-piled in, and at some point, Jaemin forgot he’d had difficulty breathing before. Renjun only got closer whenever they found each other on the couch (which became less and less frequent), and at some point Jeno was close enough that Renjun was able to shove his thigh when he suggested they sing High School Musical (they did it anyway).

It was Renjun’s mom calling that pulled them out of the heat of the room, and they made a last attempt to finish the edamame and inarizushi before pushing each other out of the building altogether.

“Did you have fun?” Renjun’s mom asked from the rolled-down window, though the smiles the three of them wore should have been answer enough.

“Absolutely,” Renjun said, and Jaemin wanted to wrangle his chest butterflies and flowers into a bottle where he could keep them.

“Good,” his mother said, decided and satisfied, and unlocked the doors so they could pile in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading ♡ There's some indulgence in picking certain songs, but here they are in order:  
Those Bygone Years - Hu Xia  
DNA. - Kendrick Lamar  
Scared - Jeremy Zucker  
The King - Conan Gray  
Worldwide - Jay Park  
Numb - Linkin Park (the number of times autocorrect tried changing Linkin to Linking...)
> 
> Strap in for the next school week coming up after this chapter (more band and drama, but not the artistic kind).
> 
> Please consider commenting! It's been a while since I've heard from you guys, and I would love to know what you thought and if you were satisfied! Your comments bring me a lot of confidence and strength, and I've appreciated every comment I've received so far. Thank you so much ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	10. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small tw: Someone in this chapter says some very brief but upsetting things concerning death.

The panic hit Sunday night, clotting like soured cheese in his stomach. His sister tried to get him to paint, but he thought his time was better spent squeezed between the toilet and the bathtub.

_“Is there a reason you should be panicking right now?” _Donghyuck asked over the line. Renjun’s phone teetered on the edge of the bathroom counter, and Renjun perched his chin on his knees as he stared into the water of the toilet bowl. _“Injunnie?”_

Renjun sucked in a breath. “I haven’t practiced all weekend.”

_“Your hands needed to heal, though. How are they?”_

“Tender.” He opened his palms and looked at the pink skin. “But I can use Jeno’s tape and hopefully they won’t reopen.”

_“Then practice steady, yeah? Don’t go nuts. You’ve had these songs down for ages.”_

“What if I’ve forgotten?” Renjun muffled his mouth in his knees.

_“What?”_

“What if I’ve forgotten, Hyuck?” he said, louder this time.

_“Then you have a whole week to remember again. I’ll sit and critique you for hours if you want.”_

Renjun whined, hugging his knees tighter. The gagging had stopped since Donghyuck insisted on calling, and there weren’t any clocks in the bathroom, so he couldn’t be sure how much time he was wasting. Was willfully keeping himself in the dark.

_“Let’s talk about something else. Did you have fun today?”_ Donghyuck’s voice sounded a little more muffled, likely having turned onto his side in bed.

“Yes.” Renjun thought about how Jaemin had slowly become less tense, melting into Renjun’s side and laughing in a way he hadn’t heard before. The weird, fuzzy feeling when Jaemin sang, voice unpracticed but nice even when it barely missed the key. Jeno, too, had been anxious in the beginning, Renjun thought, with the way he watched and waited, but pushed himself forward when he thought he could do it. He’d gotten close enough to touch at the end, smile ever-present, like he had heard Renjun silently wanting it.

_“Do you still like them?”_

“Yes,” Renjun said, sure of himself even through the little tinge of fear. “Oh my god. I’ve only known them a week and I like them.”

Donghyuck paused, and Renjun could feel what he was about to ask before he did. _“Do you like them just because they’re nice to you?”_

Swallowing, he let himself think before answering, grip so tight on his knees he might bruise. “Wouldn’t I be in love with you, then, Hyuckie?”

_“No need to break my heart like that,”_ Donghyuck teased.

Renjun wouldn’t lie—Donghyuck had been his first and only kiss so far, but it had scrambled them up and strained their friendship for a week following. It had been awkward, and didn’t feel right, and they’d come to the mutual decision that they were better as best friends. They’d talked it through for weeks, nearly, and had doubled back and thought about it, and it still led to the same place. Renjun wasn’t attracted to his best friend, and Donghyuck wasn’t attracted to him, and they didn’t like each other like that. As much as it was a shame, Renjun was just glad to have him.

He didn’t regret it. He’d rather have kissed someone he loved and trusted first (just in case), but he wouldn’t be doing it ever again.

“I miss you,” Renjun said.

_“I miss you, too.” _He could hear Donghyuck stretch on his bed and relax. _“Will you tell me about those two tomorrow? I don’t want to arrive blind, but I have to sleep and you have zero period in the morning.”_

“Yeah.”

_“You’ll be okay?”_

“I’ll let you know if I’m not,” Renjun promised, and he wrested himself out of the space between the toilet and bath to hang up.

* * *

Mondays were late-start days, but band kids only suffered a little less than normal, still waking early and pouring themselves brainlessly into music. Pit was not subjected to the field most of the time, allowed to stay in the band room and rue the reverb of the ill-suited architecture. The worst reverb, of course, came from the pit tech’s bass-boosted aggression, which always seemed to replenish over the weekend.

“Sarwen!” he yelled, making her jump and slam her right mallet down on a high C sharp. “Where’s your head gone? Are you serious right now?”

“I’ve _got_ it, Wade,” Sarwendah almost snapped, her only sin being coming in early on a part they’d practiced last week. 

Renjun’s chest fizzled with satisfaction, but at the same time, he had half a mind to drive all five pairs of his mallets right up the tech’s anus. Wade had been at everyone’s throats, and even if Sarwendah deserved every bad thing coming to her, Renjun was fucking tired of the tech and his bullshit. It didn’t matter if their next field show was Saturday—no one in pit responded well to humiliation and resentment.

“Do it right this time! From 27,” the tech said and started the metronome, the rhythm so loud it rattled in Renjun’s ears. Sarwendah got it right this time, but Renjun could see her hands shake.

“Finally. Jesus, Sarwen,” said Wade, and prowled to the other end of the pit’s spread.

Renjun let go of a breath he’d been holding and carefully avoided positioning his body language even remotely in Sarwendah’s direction.

She tended to make more mistakes than him, though she had skills he lacked. Even so, things tended to flow for Renjun when it came to the field show. He’d practiced it into the ground at this point—had added his own flourishes then ripped them out, then forcefully wrangled what he’d memorized into something new when the tech or director changed something according to their whimsy or insanity. 

At the drum break, he had to change from the vibes to marimba, slipping between My Linh and the instrument behind her. In practice, she always found a split moment to shoot him a smile, though today was the only day so far where he found the heart to return it.

* * *

By the end of both zero and first period, his hands stung a little, but his injuries hadn’t reopened, and he counted that as a win.

“You smiled back at me,” said My Linh, beaming as they pushed the instruments to the back of the classroom. They had to do that at the end of every first period in order to leave the floor free, and Renjun’s only bitter hope was that it was contributing to his weak muscle definition. “Did you have a good weekend?”

Renjun almost didn’t respond, then caught himself, fighting the inertia of not interacting with his members. He willed himself to be better—if he was more likable than Sarwendah, then he could manage to respond to his section mates. “I did,” he said, feeling almost stifled by his own resolve. “Did you?”

“Yes,” she said, seemingly so thrilled that he was responding to her, and just as she was about to say something more, Renjun’s attention was drawn to Jeno coming in at the tail end of the guard as they arrived through the back door. 

His stomach jolted in discomfort.

“Sorry,” he murmured to excuse himself, because there was no possible way to focus on anything when Jeno came in looking like he did.

Renjun was familiar with what was makeup and what wasn’t—the sweet, artistic reds and pinks Jeno was so good at doing around his eyes was not what this was. It honestly looked like he’d cried the entire night and dragged himself to school with half his spirit missing, freshly-blond hair flat and glasses shoved up his nose for the first time Renjun had ever seen him. Renjun wished he had a moment to appreciate the glasses, but it was kind of hard to focus on that.

“Jeno,” he called, taking a step down the band floor’s tiers. He tried not to be not too loud in case he drew too much attention, but he was sure he was audible. 

And Jeno had never yet ignored him—he’d always been the first to approach him so far—but he did so, now. The guard, silently protective, closed around him like a curtain, and Renjun was left trying to manage an emotion he couldn’t express as anything more than confused agitation. 

The door to the guard room closed on Jeno’s back and Renjun tried to wrangle away the tight feeling in his chest.

He’d probably get nothing out of the color guard even if he asked. They’d never liked him since first year, and they were nastily loyal sometimes even when it was best that they weren’t. He even saw one sending him a dirty look as she came out of the guard room, which was uncalled for, but desperately cauterizing. It hadn’t been his immediate assumption that he was at fault, so he struggled with the unreasonableness of assuming it now. The look was suggestive, however, and it arrived in his mind nonetheless.

With stiff hands, he collected his backpack from where he’d squirreled it away in the furthest corner of the room. He’d seen neither Jeno nor Jaemin that morning, so there was no helping its exposure to Sarwendah’s potential maliciousness, but everything looked intact for the time being.

Things did not remain that way for long.

“Are you friends with Jeno, now? Is that what’s got you in such a good mood lately?”

Renjun just managed not to flinch, but leveled himself as best as he could with Sarwendah. Her hair was piled up, slipping around her ears, and it looked like she was having an allergic reaction to her blue contacts. She looked to be sizzling, still humiliated from the tech’s backlash, and her smile was hooked up like a sneer.

He hated her.

And she didn’t deserve a response from him. He slung on his backpack and attempted to trudge past her without driving his elbow between her ribs.

“Want to see something funny?” she asked as he moved nearly beyond her, voice so saccharine and light Renjun had a knee-jerk emotional response of fear.

“No,” he said, but couldn’t keep walking when she ignored him and did what she wanted anyway. 

_“Hey, Jeno!” _she called, voice ringing happy and loud across the band room just as Jeno came out of the guard room.

Jeno froze, sore eyes on her own, and his hand fell from the handle of the door. There was a half moon of sweat at the front of his plain t-shirt from practice, and Renjun caught the flash of bruises across his knuckles and wrists. They hadn’t been there on Sunday, which made Renjun belatedly realize he might have covered them up.

Where Renjun was now, he could see him clearer. The shadows under Jeno’s eyes he missed before, hidden by the rims of his glasses, were incredibly dark.

Sarwendah’s lips shook with adrenaline when she spoke, the giddiness of the hunt familiar to Renjun in her features, and panic welled up in him because she was _mean_ and Jeno was clearly not well. “Tell me, Jeno. Is there a name for a boy without his mama?”

Her voice rang, and Renjun could not compute what she’d said, but it spilled across Jeno and made his back hit the door as if she’d backhanded him.

Renjun’s thoughts were a muddle for one wild moment as he choked on the startled silence of the entire room—pit and guard and some band members all with their eyes on either Sarwendah or Jeno.

Her next words were quieter, but still so loud. “Has your daddy managed to kill himself yet?”

Jeno didn’t move an inch except for his gaze flicking straight to Renjun, and then, just as clear as Sarwendah had been, Jeno said, “Shouldn’t you worry about your own parents, Sarwen?”

Sarwendah sucked in a breath, and Jeno broke eye contact with Renjun to turn and push himself out the back door of the band room.

One of the nearest upperclassmen broke the silence. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Sarwen?”

Her face burned, but Renjun couldn’t spare a single inch of interest in her, and if he could have forgiven her for everything before, he had no interest in doing so now.

* * *

**From: Chenle  
** _u shud join us 2dy_

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _I need to talk to you_  
_will you be at linch?  
_ _lunch_

“Phone away, Renjun,” said the teacher, and Renjun started, but immediately shot his hand up.

“Can I go outside for a second, Ms. Goldsmith?”

She looked startled at his request, and even his table mate shot him a look of surprise. He hardly talked in class, let alone asserted himself like this.

“Um, yes,” she said, and Renjun pushed himself immediately out of his chair and around the other students to the door. He wasn’t worried about missing anything—he was a good student, and bio was an easy subject for him.

The day was warm, but not sweltering, the geese roaming the grassy quad like the demons they were. Renjun took several breaths before waking his phone up again.

**To: Chenle  
** _why? swim meet?_

**From: Chenle  
** _nah  
_ _jst wan2 check in_

Renjun didn’t understand Chenle’s method of texting, but it didn’t hinder him from understanding. Chenle wanting to check in made sense, hypothetically, if it had anything to do with Jeno. Renjun had heard things that he knew instinctively came from the wrong person at the wrong time, and he had no idea how much truth or worth there was in even the most straightforward assumptions.

**To: Chenle  
** _is jeno ok?_

**From: Chenle  
** _hes alwys ok_

Renjun rubbed his face and settled to a sit against the brick wall of the science building. Though he didn’t expect it, Jaemin replied in the next second.

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Yeah omg why? Is there something wrong? (๑ˊ· ᐞ ·ˋ๑)_

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _where do you get those emojis?_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Separate keyboard~! (´｡• ω •｡`)_

**To: Jaemin Na  
** _huh_  
_yeah idk if there’s something wrong or not  
_ _have you seen jeno this morning?_

**From: Jaemin Na  
** _Did something happen??_  
_No, I didn’t_  
_hold on wait sory in class  
_ _gtg_

He kept his phone in hand for a moment longer before pushing himself to his feet and reentering the classroom. Ms. Goldsmith didn’t send him a single confused or irritated look, which meant he hadn’t been gone long, but his mind was running a mile a minute, so he couldn’t say for sure.

Renjun drowned himself in the work for the rest of the next three periods to avoid overthinking a situation where he didn’t have all the information.

* * *

When Jaemin plopped himself down at their adopted table (an unspoken agreement), he did so on the same bench rather than the one across, and Renjun’s heart hiccuped awkwardly in his chest. The makeup was back—a perfectly curated look of subtlety and barely-there highlights. Renjun wasn’t sure which version of Jaemin he thought prettier, but he liked seeing what Jaemin could do nonetheless.

Either way, he was sitting on the same bench, and it was almost like they were back at karaoke where he’d been a breath away.

Still no lunch, though. Just a notebook and his big eyes. “Is Jeno okay?” Jaemin said almost immediately, and Renjun just barely managed to keep his brain from short-circuiting when Jaemin’s knee just barely touched his own.

“I don’t…know,” Renjun said. “You haven’t heard anything yet?”

Jaemin blinked, then something in his expression clicked, and he pulled out his phone again. From so close, Renjun could see the dozens of notifications Jaemin had, but had the decency not to process what any of them said. When he opened his chat app, he propped his chin on his palm and scrolled through the messages.

“My phone blew up this morning, but I only looked at your texts,” Jaemin admitted. Renjun almost stabbed himself in the face with his chopsticks on accident.

“Are you—” Renjun started, then stopped and rearranged his chopsticks. 

Jaemin shifted his gaze back to him. “Am I what?” he asked, voice kind and curious.

When Renjun bit the tips of his chopsticks, Jaemin smiled at him, and he remembered how agonizing it was to be with this boy when he was confident. Karaoke was a small reprieve and a miracle for his health. Maybe he _didn’t_ like Jaemin with makeup, because he was nearly positive the two correlated. “—popular?”

His smile was fucking blinding, and Renjun scowled out of an inability to do anything else. “I like to think people like me in band. I got nothing outside of it, though, aside from Mark and Yukhei.” For a moment, Renjun almost asked who Yukhei was, then made the connection that it was probably whoever Jaemin had introduced as “Lucas.” Maybe he was also Chinese.

Jaemin refocused on his phone, and Renjun watched as his mouth grew thin, his eyes squinting periodically as well, and Renjun wondered how much gossip the saxes got up to on the regular.

“Do you want some of my bao?” Renjun said while he waited.

“Hm?” Jaemin looked over again, then stared at Renjun. “You’re offering me like, the holy grail of lunches, Renjun.”

Renjun could only bite down on his tongue to stop from blushing, and didn’t push it. Instead, he kept himself content watching Jaemin read his texts while eating his baozi alone. 

Jaemin had pretty eyelashes.

“Isn’t Sarwen in your section?” Jaemin asked eventually, and Renjun swallowed around the sweet pork filling he’d bitten into.

“We don’t claim her,” Renjun said. Jaemin snorted.

“My friend says she called Jeno an orphan,” he said, eyebrows scrunching, and he placed his phone face-down on the lunch table. “But that group chat was a mess.”

Renjun shook his head. “That’s not right.” He wouldn’t say what she _had_ said was even slightly better, though. “She said—” He struggled for a moment to remember the exact wording, though he wasn’t sure. “She asked him what the word was for someone without their mom.”

Jaemin’s face blanked, then went straight to confusion. “_Is_ there a word for that?”

“I have no idea,” Renjun admitted. “She also asked if his dad had killed himself yet.”

It was fascinating how vivid Jaemin’s expressions were, but this one was as close to livid as he’d yet seen him. “What the _fuck_? No wonder you don’t claim her. What’s her damage?” After a look of disgust, Jaemin sat processing that, letting his rhetorical questions float, then started to gnaw on his lower lip. “Why’d she take a go at him? Do they have a history?”

Renjun hadn’t considered that, but—“I really try to talk to Sarwen as little as possible.”

Jaemin’s laugh was one of those tailored ones, dorky and dry, though brief. “She sounds like a bitch. Think reporting her would work?”

In all likelihood, the answer was no. Administration didn’t touch band as if they simply _couldn’t_. Or at least didn’t know how. The only impact they could have was if Ms. M ended up majorly overstepping her bounds. Parents had the greatest influence, but it wasn’t like Sarwendah had stripped naked in the middle of the band room, so it was unlikely the first years’ parents would be scandalized enough for that.

“No,” Renjun said.

“Yeah, no,” Jaemin agreed, sighed, and continued gnawing at his bottom lip.

“You should join us after school,” Renjun said without another breath, and rued a little over how frequently he had Jaemin’s eyes on him.

“Who’s ‘us?’”

“Jeno and his friends go to the pool after swim practice is over, and it sounds like he’ll be there, maybe,” Renjun said, though it was honestly a shot in the dark. He wouldn’t blame Jeno if he didn’t show up to school or anything else for the rest of the month. He had Jeno’s red-swollen eyes burned into his mind, and he hated it.

Jaemin rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb, and Renjun was kind of worried about the state of the skin there. “Yeah, I can swing that,” he said, and then suddenly every inch of Jaemin’s attention was weighed into him all at once. “Did you know you smell like white tea?”

Startled and burning alive, Renjun wouldn’t have minded the god of homophobia striking down either one of them in that moment.

He hated Jaemin with makeup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies about the texting format—I can't decide how I want it and I probably won't retcon anything until I'm done fjsklfjskflks
> 
> Also like...hhhhhhh welcome back to the angst. Still more questions raised than answered—my mildly sincere apologies.
> 
> I had to get this one out asap, but I probably won't be able to update again this week. We'll see!! Thank you for being so patient while waiting for the previous chapter. This one's my gift to you for being so supportive and kind ;; Please let me know your thoughts as usual! I really love hearing from you all, and I'll respond to ch9's comments soon!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	11. Jaemin

Jaemin passed the school pool on the daily just on his way back home, but he’d never been soclose as to be so aware of the chlorine smell. He had his own pool at home, but it was mild and wildly outplayed by the school’s waters.

“No wonder he smells like chlorine,” he said aloud, and Renjun’s expression was just shy of judgmental. He deserved that, and would patiently await the day Renjun forgot Jaemin knew what everyone around him smelled like. It was just something he noticed, though he knew Yukhei smelt nothing at all times constantly. He needed his flavors to be torqued up to appreciate anything for its distinction.

He wished he could have candles at home, but his parents were convinced an unattended flame in proximity to him would burn down everything they loved (himself not included).

Practice was still in session, but someone Renjun seemed to recognize was slouched over his phone in the perma-stands—though he hesitated hard for a second. The entire pool area was mostly pavement except for a ring of grass that the bleachers hovered over. On cold mornings, the pool would give off steam like a vaporized electricity bill.

“What?” Jaemin asked as Renjun paused to get up on his toes and peer around the mesh fence.

“Nothing. I think that’s Chenle. His hair wasn’t purple before.”

“Oh. Cute,” Jaemin said, and tailed behind Renjun as he slipped inside the pool area. “I want to have pink hair someday.” It was wishful thinking at most—he’d have to shave his hair off or dye it back by his parents’ verdict, and though he could ignore them and try to keep it anyway, his dad wasn’t beyond manhandling. As is, he had a little control over his hair in the way he styled it each day, and he’d rather have that than a glowing moment of sunrise pink.

“It would look nice,” Renjun supposed, casting his face a searching glance, and Jaemin smiled just for him even when it made Renjun look away faster.

The water polo team was doing basic laps to warm-down, some of the older members pulling themselves out to shower and dry off. Jaemin wasn’t personally keen on the speedo look, so he kept his eyes averted and on Renjun instead.

“Chenle!”

The boy with the purple hair looked up and smiled, eyes squinting cutely, and he _had_ to be a year or two younger than them or Jaemin would eat his backpack for a face that sweet.

When Renjun stepped up onto the bleachers, Jaemin just barely kept himself from reaching to steady him just in case. Even if Renjun had seemed to welcome touch in private, that didn’t mean that he could do anything of the sort out in the open. 

Renjun almost slipped anyway, though, these stands easily within the splash zone, and Jaemin just managed not to bite his tongue.

“Is Jeno coming?” Renjun asked, unbothered by the near-accident and settling down next to the other boy. Jaemin slid in next to Renjun and sighed through his nose, leaning forward to be privy to the conversation.

“It’s weird hearing you speak English,” Chenle said, and balanced his phone on his thigh. “I’m not sure. He will if he’s smart. Are you Jaemin?”

All of that had been said with seeming flippancy, and he wasn’t sure how to interpret the parts before the question. “Yes,” he said, allowing his mouth to use itself in lieu of his brain. “It’s nice to meet you.” Belatedly, he knew Jeno hadn’t talked about Chenle at all, and the worse revelation came to himjust shortly after the first thought: Jeno didn’t reveal much of anything. Jaemin told himself it had only been a week, and it wasn’t like anyone outside of his nearest circle knew much about him, either.

The pit in his stomach settled.

Chenle pursed his lips, as though stopping himself from saying something, and leaned back on the bench behind them. “That’s Jeno’s palette you’re wearing, yeah?”

"Mhm," Jaemin said because it was. In all its expensive glory—Jeno favored the warm tones dipping into reds, and for good reason, those squares a little more worn. Jaemin, out of sheer courtesy, avoided them. “Does Jeno know we're here?”

With a hum, Chenle shrugged. “He’ll probably be expecting Renjun, but not you.” Chenle brought his attention forward to watch as the rest of the team slopped themselves out of the pool, and one gangly bit of boy dripped his way over, hugging his chest like his nipples held secrets.

This boy, too, almost slipped on the stands when he put a foot forward to lean in their direction. His skin was tan and flush, but the reediness of his body indicated that he was definitely a first year.

He held out his hand to Jaemin first. “I’m Jisung.”

“Oh,” Jaemin said, and took the proffered, damp fingers in his grip. His hands were kind of overwhelmingly large for a fourteen-year-old. “Jaemin.”

“Right,” he said. “I figured that out because you’re—” He turned to Renjun, looking kind of shy. “—Renjun. I'm sorry for not saying hi ever.”

“I've only visited once,” Renjun said, and took his hand, too, hand just as small in his grip.

Finally, Jisung turned to Chenle, pushing the wet hair out of his eyes. The little crack of sunshine Jisung had given the two of them leaked out from his lips when he spoke to the other boy, like a tiny papercut of affection. “Is Jeno coming?”

Chenle, as if by instinct when given Jisung's attention, had a little upward quirk to his mouthand eyes when he replied. “I hope so. He should.”

Jisung nodded, then maneuvered himself to sit down, arms still angled to protect himself. “I’ll wait for a few.”

“You don’t have to sit like that,” Chenle said.

“They’re strangers,” Jisung retorted, and nodded with some timidity at Renjun and Jaemin. Jaemin felt embarrassed somehow, but mostly endeared.

“I can take my shirt off too, if you want,” Jaemin teased, and watched Jisung go pink as Chenle laughed loudly. Renjun pressed his hands between his knees and snorted. In truth, Jaemin would rather die before showing his ugly, mottled bruises to the sun. His neck was finally almost healed, but he’d gotten about a dozen concerned comments from his class and bandmates before this point and it was embarrassing to have his own shortcomings so glaringly on display.

Only seconds, now, since Jisung had sat down, he stood again, eyes at the gate where Jeno walked in. There was something careful about how Jeno approached them, and Jaemin's heart sank at how tired he looked.

“Hi, Jeno,” Jaemin called, and when Jeno looked at him, Jaemin smiled, thrusting warmth his way as if something like that could travel through chlorine-infused air. “Your glasses are nice.” Even out-of-sorts, he looked good with the thick black upper rims.

Jeno’s smile was only a meek flinch, but it was there, and Jaemin wanted to bring him in and comfort him somehow concerning a source he wasn’t yet aware of. Still, Jeno kept an arm’s length away when he reached them, fingers smoothing up and down the strap of his backpack.

“I have to change,” he said, looking over at Jisung. “Are you okay waiting for another minute?”

Jisung nodded. “I’ll get back in.” When he turned back to the water, Jeno hesitated before leaving.

“Did you guys have a good day?” he asked, nodding to both Jaemin and Renjun politely. His grip pulsed around the strap, nails digging into the material as his bruises wallowed yellow.

“Yes,” said Renjun, but Jaemin added, “Now that I know you’re okay.”

Renjun slouched in Jaemin’s periphery, and Jeno startled in a barely-there twitch before his eyes glimmered dully in mirth. “I’m okay,” he confirmed, and turned for the changing rooms. The swim team, now venturing back out freshly showered but still sun-bleached, seemed not to see him as he slipped past them.

“Jaemin,” Renjun said, and it was a scratchy whine, “what the hell?” Chenle’s laugh was bright, and a stiffness that Jaemin hadn’t seen in the younger melted over the complaint. He’d been watching Jeno too closely to look at Chenle, but his posture had definitely sunk, and he left the bleachers to go to the poolside, tugging off his shoes as he went.

“Okay, but,” Jaemin finally replied, “did you see how he smiled?”

“Yeah,” Renjun mused, still curled up from his slouch but unfurling slowly, and watched the water wobble around Jisung like a lake drowning a single weed. Jaemin could feel the warmth of the late summer sun against his nose and the backs of his hands. From this distance, he couldn’t read the scratched-on vandalism on the changing room doors, so he thought about better speedo designs instead.

Renjun rubbed his face with both hands, then straightened up and swapped one leg over the seat to face him. “I’m worried,” Renjun said, palms pressed to the metal bench, and Jaemin looked away from the changing room door to Renjun. “He came to school looking like he’d cried all night. Like his eyes were puffy and red. And then Sarwen said those things. He looks better now, but—oh.”

Jaemin raised his eyebrows, but followed Renjun’s diverted attention back to where Jeno was exiting the changing room and thought the same thing.

_oh._

A black tattoo the size of two hands was painted across his hip and side, a detailed and dark wave crashing against the divot of bone at his pelvis, just visible above the cinch of his patterned trunks. It shifted over wiry teenage muscle as he walked, swirling in on itself. Jeno didn’t pay the two of them a glance, but approached where Chenle sat at the edge of the pool and sat down with him, breath rising high into his shoulders and let out in a single breath.

For a moment, Chenle touched his hand before Jeno slipped into the water, fingertips smoothing over his bruised knuckles.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Jaemin asked. People had to be eighteen or older to get a tattoo like that in California—no exceptions given—and unless he’d badly misinterpreted how old Jeno was…It’s not that it wasn’t impressive or beautiful. It was. He was simply bewildered by seeing something he didn’t expect or understand.

“Could have gotten it in another state,” Renjun said, eyebrows pinched. Jeno and Jisung had started doing laps, and Jeno’s hair was flaxen from the water. “But I remember him being here our first year and second, so he had to have left for it specially sometime.”

“He got it when he was fifteen. Early last year.” Jaemin startled at Chenle having come up to them, the boy’s feet leaving dark prints of water as he ducked to gather his shoes and socks. “He got permission to go to Nevada and get it during break.” Chenle settled back down on the same bench they were on. “You should ask him about it, but not today. Do you want to get food after this?”

Chenle seemed to be good at saying important things, then distracting from it all with a bright question. Still, Jaemin applied himself in order to answer. He’d given the excuse of an impromptu marching sectional to his mother in order to be at the pool at all, which gave him approximately an hour, which they’d already cut into by a quarter. It was treading on thin ice to stretch it longer than that, but the consequences would be the same as they always were and he’d survived it each time.

“Sure,” Jaemin said right before Renjun said, “Where?”

Chenle shrugged and stretched out for the sun, looking relaxed and happy. “Jeno likes the frozen yoghurt place, and this month’s special flavor is ube. We can go wherever, though.”

Renjun nodded and moved the bottoms of his shoes against the grain of the bleachers, making that weird sound it would cause, and watched as Jeno swam. In Jaemin’s limited understanding, Jeno was a confident swimmer. He switched through the strokes with Jisung, and they both gradually slowed down over the minutes. Jisung would stop to tread water and talk with him every so often, and Jeno would realize a moment after, stop, and swim back, flicking the water out of his eyes. He didn’t talk in return much, but would sometimes come close to smiling.

“Did something happen last night?” Renjun asked.

“No,” Chenle said, eyes on the water as well. “Not really. He didn’t tell me everything, but I know he enjoyed going out with you two.”

“Did he say that?” Jaemin asked, leaning forward against his knees.

Chenle pinched his mouth over a smile, like he was just short of snorting. “He sent a smiley emoji to the group chat.”

The sheer minimalism was somehow utterly, entirely precious, and Jaemin folded to huff a laugh against his knees. He’d also told Mark and Yukhei how it had gone, but he’d been significantly more verbose and Mark had fallen asleep over the video chat (and also over his AP Psych homework).

“Does he send frowny faces to signal him being sad?” Renjun asked, voice tight with something pleasant and reserved. Jaemin turned to watch it in his face—the vague glimmer and tease at the corner of his eyes.

Chenle sucked in a breath, laugh short. “No. Then he just calls, but only if it’s really bad. Otherwise he keeps it to himself.”

Renjun hummed, and Jaemin watched Chenle artfully overturn the conversation away from Jeno, and Renjun seemed to follow along easily, bending into the conversation on a recent Chinese film release. Jaemin rubbed the fabric over his knees and stood to walk along the pool edge.

Jeno skimmed away from the other end of the pool, and Jaemin navigated himself to be where Jeno ended, plopping down cross-legged to watch how the water paled out Jeno’s skin and darkened his tattoo. If Jeno didn’t even share the small things with his friends, then he either experienced very little sadness, or had some other feelings at play. Similarly, it didn’t make sense to Jaemin that someone would go out of their way to get such a large piece of art on their body at such a young age unless it meant something—it wasn’t that he couldn’t comprehend people getting tattoos just for the sake of it. It was simply that Jeno had gotten it at fifteen, underage, deliberately in another state, and it didn’t make sense to go to such lengths if it wasn’t important.

He wouldn’t allow himself to make assumptions beyond that—to even tease any impression when the tattoo could mean anything at all.

Jaemin adjusted his foot under his leg so it didn’t press where he was sore, and waited for Jeno to touch his end of the pool before tickling the water with his fingertips. Like a quiet selkie, Jeno came up and flicked the water out of his eyes, fingers coming up to hook to the ledge of the pool. His undereyes looked bruised, but water dripped from his nose, lashes like speared gates to sunlit eyes, and Jaemin was falling for a pretty thing called Jeno.

He wasn’t sure what to say. Out of all the things he wanted to say, he came up dry.

Instead of parsing through all his words, he let himself relax and lowered his fingers to brush over the fragile, bruised skin at the back of Jeno’s hand instead. Jeno looked at him like he was witnessing a strange riddle of a creature. His hand was cool at first, then warm.

“Hi,” Jeno said, and didn’t move away.

“You’re really okay?” Jaemin managed, and Jeno’s eyes flickered with an unreadable something.

“Usually,” Jeno said, and slipped his hands back into the water, pushing back from the edge. “A few more laps and then we’ll be out.”

Jaemin nodded and wiped his palm on his jeans, the water slipping over Jeno without a sound.

* * *

As Chenle gave Jisung’s scalp a vigorous case of rug burn with the towel in his hands, Renjun matched strides with Jaemin and nudged his hip with his knuckles. The sun was hottest at this time of day, but it burned pleasantly in the breeze that had started up. It wasn’t hot enough to boil through Jaemin’s shoes as they walked to the frozen yoghurt shop, and so it was tolerable.

Jaemin looked to Renjun and saw the question there in his mouth, in the scrunch of his eyes, and smiled. “I asked him if he’s really okay and he said ‘usually.’ It wasn’t much.”

“Oh.” What was pinched in Renjun’s features uncinched, and a similar relief at having read Renjun correctly trickled through Jaemin in quiet swirls. “You touched him,” he said, so quiet it was hardly a whisper, and Jaemin tangled his fingers in the weird, incomprehensible knots making a home in his chest. Two was difficult—there weren’t pre-made maps of how to do things with two people. He only had the one, but juggling felt wrong and silly, like ignoring the ball that was midair in favor of the one in his grip.

At the back of the group, Jeno trailed along, drying his own hair and talking about Chenle’s robotics project over the crippled head of Jisung getting near-strangled with playfulness.

“Yeah,” Jaemin said, finally, struggling to word anything else, “but I have two hands.”

The snort Renjun gave sounded like it hurt, and Jaemin’s heart quavered, eyes flicking along the passing cars as they hit the sidewalk off campus.

His dad arrived home at six o’clock or later most days. His mom didn’t often venture out of the house on Mondays. Even as the lady at the stop sign looked terrifyingly familiar, he knew he was probably. _Probably_ wrong.

Jaemin let his pinkie finger graze against Renjun’s, and the smile Renjun gave him swooped down Jaemin’s throat, making it hard to breathe. He inhaled, tried not to look away, and failed as he knew that if he went perfectly still, he would have been able to see his own pulse through his shirt.

Out of anything in the world for the moment, he wanted to sit somewhere private with Renjun, with Jeno, then maybe both of them. Ask them if he was going crazy for being able to count the number of hours he’d spent with them on two hands and thinking he liked them both. Simultaneously and within the same amount of days.

He’d crushed on boys who had said hi to him before, of course, and he’d liked Charlie in fifth period last year because he was somehow nice to everyone even though they’d never talked. But Renjun and Jeno were tangible, and here was an actual, existing risk—tangible against his pinkie finger and the earlier bruised skin under his palm.

He knew without a doubt he was making a mistake.

“My best friend is coming to watch me for assessments,” Renjun said, and it clicked Jaemin back into the moment as if someone had snapped their fingers in his face. They’d crossed the street, and he could hear Chenle and Jisung talking, but not Jeno. In a moment, he would make himself reach back for Jeno and pull him forward. He had to.

“Your best friend?” Jaemin said.

“From Michigan.”

Jaemin inhaled sharply and shook his head. “Right, I’m sorry. I remember. He’s flying in? To see you?” He liked to think he would do the same for Mark and Yukhei when they graduated, though it wasn’t exactly in his control. Either way, he intended to see them on his own terms even if it ended up with some other punishment. That night he’d spent over at Yukhei’s and broke down at school had ended terribly, but. He’d survived it.

Renjun nodded, a tiny smile scratched into his features, and Jaemin smiled too because of it. “He arrives on Wednesday and’ll be following me around Thursday. He wants to meet you two.” The last bit was more of a question, and Renjun cast a look over to Jaemin in the midst of it.

Jaemin hummed and nodded. “I’ll prepare myself,” he teased. There wasn’t anything scary about it at the moment for him—he had a whole two days to periodically forget about it then remember it and stress over his clothes and makeup and presentation and Fuck It All he was already scared. Jaemin forced himself to exhale. “What’s his name?”

“Donghyuck.”

He wished he could say the name sounded familiar, but he really wasn’t all too social outside of band. More people knew him than he knew them, and he wasn’t sure how that happened, but it always startled him when someone said hello to him in the halls.

Either way, he nodded firmly. “I’ll remember.” Then, he turned and reached for Jeno, who was walking behind them all, watching as his hands gripped the straps of his backpack. “Come up here, Jeno. We miss you.”

The exhale Jeno gave out was telling, Jaemin thought, especially when he didn’t hesitate to slip past Chenle and Jisung. His hair was a bad attempt at order, but he looked better now than he had before coming through the pool gate—hair and all.

“Why don’t you wear glasses more?” Renjun asked, hugging the grass closer so the three of them could fit on the single sidewalk. This close, unless Jaemin held his arms a certain way or hugged himself, his pinkies brushed both of theirs. Or they would have if Jeno had been willing to let go of his backpack.

“The makeup’s more visible without them,” he said.

“You look good both ways,” Jaemin said, and watched as Jeno looked away toward the street, then to his shoes with nothing to say.

* * *

The frozen yoghurt place was a whole lot of white and green, a pristine row of machines waiting with their levers outstretched and cute illustrated flavors above them. Chenle selected a large cup, which made Jisung trail right behind him poking in the direction of the flavors he wanted aside from Chenle’s chocolate.

As Renjun got ube and Jeno got mango and vanilla, Jaemin fiddled with the dairy-free peach frozen yoghurt, watching over his shoulder as Jeno reached for his wallet and promptly got a fist to his side from Chenle.

The boy wheezed, and when he protested, Chenle somehow got him in a headlock and tossed his own card on the counter. “You’re having a bad day. Let me pay for once,” Chenle said, and Jeno didn’t even seem to be fighting him physically—just trying to get out of a scrawny headlock with his glasses intact.

“I can pay for my own,” Jaemin said, crossing from the machines to the toppings selection. He saved up for these kinds of things in particular, hardly spending money on anything else if he could help it. His parents reminded him he was expensive enough as is, so he had to be careful that he could always afford things he both wanted and needed. If he so much as indicated he needed money for something, his parents acted like he had a syndrome for chronic debt.

Jeno managed to back out of Chenle’s hold, and Jaemin glanced to the cashier, who was holding Chenle’s card with immense hesitation and confusion. Jaemin stifled a laugh.

“Only if you think it would be better,” Jeno said, “but I’d like to pay.”

“You’re not paying!” Chenle emphasized, and threatened to grab for him again. Jeno took a step back and nearly bumped into Renjun.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” Jeno murmured, and looked ever so vaguely overwhelmed. Renjun just laughed and swerved for the counter, handing over his cup to be weighed. “Chenle would like to pay,” he corrected for Jaemin, and Jaemin was stuck watching this utter chaos with one scoop in the swedish fish. Jisung hovered by the counter, having already weighed the cup he shared with Chenle and looking like he wasn’t equipped for this kind of conflict.

“Alright. Chenle can pay.” Jaemin said, still trying not to laugh, and watched Jeno relax under his messy blond hair and thick glasses. Chenle just looked satisfied, and every day Jaemin wished he could understand Jeno better.

Instead, he could only just pocket the quiet ‘thank you’ Jeno gave him and wait for a sane day where they could talk alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meant to post this slightly earlier then panicked about a mistake I thought I made with the boys' ages (I didn't) and ended up on a phone call for an hour. But! I am here and have this chapter to present to you.
> 
> We'll have one more chapter at the very least before we get anything from Jeno, but I hope you guys are slowly seeing a certain picture of him.
> 
> Thoughts, frustrations, predictions, opinions? I'd love to hear from you guys, and I've loved talking with everyone who has commented so far ♡ I hope you guys have continued to enjoy ^^
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	12. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams* oh my god I'm so sorry I took so long. I had some life barriers, and then this chapter turned out to be one of the most difficult and complicated chapters I've had to write so far. 
> 
> I have no clue if it's any good, but I've tried so hard to make it presentable and I dearly hope it's been worth the wait ♡

As soon as they sat down at one of the tables in the shop, Renjun saw Jaemin pull out his phone, shoot a text, and then immediately put it on airplane mode. Renjun bit the recycled plastic of his spoon and looked down at his frozen yoghurt swirl. It was a combo of ube and birthday cake, which was somehow an ideal blend for him, but he was distracted, now.

He remembered when he couldn’t manage to contact Jaemin for nearly a whole day, and the attitude Jaemin seemed to have toward his phone—the dozens of messages, but only looking at Renjun’s, the lack of presence his phone had from day-to-day when it was so often a natural extension of his peers. Renjun hardly knew what Jaemin’s phone looked like—whether it was an iPhone or android, clear-cased or gaudy. He supposed it was polite, in a way, for Jaemin to have his phone out so little while he was interacting with others, but airplane mode seemed excessive.

The frozen yoghurt melted on his tongue as he held it in his mouth.

“It doesn’t do much,” Chenle was admitting about his robotics project. “Right now it can just pick up matches.”

“Sounds like a fire hazard,” Jaemin said, and everyone caught the tiniest snort Jeno gave of a laugh. His eyes crinkled just a little, and it was so small but so significant. Jisung shifted in his seat like he wasn’t sure where to situate his sudden pulse of excitement from that reaction. It took the form of him reaching across to graze his fingertips over the knuckles of Jeno’s hand. Jeno tangled his fingers in Jisung’s ever so briefly before retreating again, but Jisung didn’t seem to take that as an insult. “Is it robotics you want to go into?” Jaemin continued.

“No,” Chenle said, “I don’t know. I just like figuring out how things work.” 

Just like the first time Renjun met him, there were ink marks on Chenle’s forearms. Renjun pressed his spoon to his lips when he noticed the little lime green heart. He tried to swallow down a smile.

“What about you, Jeno?” Jaemin asked, his phrasing and tone just accepting enough that if Jeno wanted to back out of it, he could.

Instead, the boy looked up from his cup like Jaemin had dragged him into the center of the room by the neck of his t-shirt, uncomfortable and startled. He drew a hand through his hair, now dry, and Jaemin looked like he was trying to stifle a strong mortification at having caused Jeno to look like a deer in headlights. “I’m not sure yet,” said Jeno, voice smaller than it ought to have been.

Chenle shifted in his seat and nudged his cup toward Jisung just as Jaemin took a heaving inhale of regret. “I think maybe I could go into public speaking?" Chenle said. "I’ve always liked being the center of attention,” he said, effectively and intentionally butting in, and Renjun wheezed into his frozen yoghurt. Chenle laughed in turn, and Jisung was trying to swallow through a messy chortle. 

Jaemin was a little pink around the edges, but looked far from upset from the intervention, so when he stood up, abruptly, suddenly, jerking on his backpack and moving out from the table, Renjun was alarmed. Then he was terrified something about the situation had crossed an unknown limit, because Jaemin was far from warm or even pink anymore. He wore an expression Renjun could not parse, but after a scrambled moment of panic, he realized Jaemin had his eyes out the window—not on any of them. And instead of walking right out the front, he pivoted quickly for the bathrooms and pushed through the singular locking door.

Renjun inhaled and swallowed his heart, startled and unsure.

As he rose to follow, the entrance jingled and something made him sit right back down.

Through the glass doors entered a woman, tall and narrow with almond eyes made up to be bigger than they rightfully were. She hadn’t been the only person to enter while their group had come in, but she was certainly the most purposeful. 

The woman smiled, and it was pretty and thin-lipped as she approached their table, one chair too-quickly abandoned, and Renjun sucked in a breath because their stunned silence was definitely telling.

At the table away from them, a couple flirted over the last bit of edible cookie dough, and like normal customers, they weren’t bothered by another person entering the shop.

“I don’t think I like ube,” Renjun blurted, lied, trying to say something in an even remotely casual fashion, and Jisung took a moment to look genuinely concerned.

“Why’d you get it, then?”

“Hi, hello. I just have a question,” the woman said, at their table now. She had hair so black it was nearly blue, silky and slipping neatly out of a careful knot. Renjun tried not to stiffen, eyes flicking from the ring on her finger to her slim features. Honestly, the resemblance was just short of a punch in the face.

“Um,” Renjun said, letting himself sound as uncomfortable as he truly was. “Sure.”

She gestured to the abandoned cup at their table, dairy-free peach with swedish fish and coconut drizzle. She placed one hand on the corner of the table, her bracelet ticking against the laminate. “Is that my son’s, by any chance? His name is Jaemin.”

Something cold and uneasy curled in Renjun’s stomach like his frozen yoghurt had re-formed and curdled with the acid there.

The silence was just a breath, Chenle looking like this was not the kind of attention he preferred (though Renjun suspected he had fibbed), and Jisung looking like if he sat still enough, he wouldn’t be gored by a she-bull.

“That’s…no. That’s his,” Jeno said, speaking through the silence with something tight and low. He pointed to Jisung, who had one spoon in Chenle’s cup. “He didn’t like what he got. Do we know you?”

It was the woman’s turn to express discomfort, hands removing themselves from their proximity and fiddling with air. Jeno, who had been closest to her shoulder, leaned further out of her zone. “Have you seen a boy here, then, around your age?”

“There’ve been a few,” Chenle said, “but they’ve all been white.”

Renjun, in any other circumstance, would have laughed, but whatever had been cold in him before was warming slowly. Jisung had pulled Jaemin’s cup toward himself and had managed a look of vague distaste.

Overall, he wasn’t sure what it was about this woman that made them so determined to lie, but if she really was Jaemin’s mother, then Jaemin deciding to lock himself in the shop bathroom hardly seemed like a coincidence.

“Ah,” she said, color a little sour under her makeup. Jaemin did his eyes similarly to how she did hers, too, the subtle eyeliner and highlight a spot-on imitation. “I’m very sorry to bother you, then.” Her smile was tight, and the Renjun’s nerves, even warmed with affection for the boys around him, coiled and tightened.

Another handful of customers came in and she wrung her hands in a move quite unlike Jaemin, but whisked herself away like Jaemin was able to. For a moment, it seemed like she was one second away from talking to the cashier, and Renjun just barely curbed the temptation to spill his serving on the floor in a dramatic and desperate display.

She swerved, though, and pressed her manicured hands to the glass of the door, and the collective breath the four of them released was almost stale with anxiety.

“What just happened,” Chenle said, the wonder in his voice flat and wonky with strain. He sank into his chair and blew another exhale past his lips. Jeno was looking out the window, watching for the woman’s car to wheel away, dark eyes mulling over thoughts Renjun could almost hear.

Jeno could afford to be so blatant—the woman had wrongfully encroached (or such was the lie), and anyone would have the justification to stare. Renjun couldn’t see the woman well through the decal on the shop windows and tint of her car’s windshield, but he hoped she was fumbling and nervous. He hoped, without knowing why and for what, that she was humiliated and would remain that way for as long as she deserved it.

It wasn’t until the car pulled away that Renjun noticed he’d been fiercely swirling his yoghurt together into a ridiculous mess of lilac.

“I’ll go get him,” Renjun offered, and stood up. Jeno gave him a glance, but his gaze was still too deep to say anything.

Even as the new customers chattered and bickered over the different flavors, the air felt stiff with silence as Renjun made his way over to the bathroom nook. He knocked once and introduced himself to the door, back to the other customers for even an inch of privacy. “Jaemin? It’s Renjun. She’s gone.” He didn’t dare call her his mom just in case she wasn’t—the idea was horrifying to even entertain.

He felt the handle click as it unlocked under his grip, but it did nothing more than that. Renjun exhaled before pushing the door open.

Jaemin had backed up against the wall by the sink, eyes wide and bottom lip bleeding from being gnawed at. Fear had an odd effect on his face—he looked desperately young and awkward. He looked the least like the Jaemin Renjun was familiar with than he’d ever seen him.

“You wiped off your makeup,” Renjun said, and Jaemin’s exhale was measured and careful, eyes still so wide. His skin was pink around them from being hastily cleaned, and he looked bare under the insulting lights of the dingy bathroom.

“Did she say anything?”

Renjun fiddled with the door handle, becoming gradually more upset the more vague details he collected. “Nothing that might be private,” Renjun said, because he figured that’s what Jaemin wanted to know.

Jaemin let out a shaky breath and didn’t seem to know what to do, still standing there lanky and awkward and blanched.

“Do you want to join us again?” Renjun asked, and found his voice as quiet as if he were speaking to a baby animal.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Jaemin said instead, voice in a worse state than his physical appearance, suddenly strained and grainy. “I need to call Mark.”

Renjun’s hand tightened around the doorknob, loosely tying all these ideas and hints together until they formed a knot in his stomach and throat. “Sure. Yeah,” he said, and slipped his phone out of his back pocket. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” Jaemin whispered, and accepted the phone gently as Renjun thumbed the home button.

“Should I leave?” Renjun asked as Jaemin tapped in a phone number, and he looked up before hitting the call button.

“Please,” Jaemin said, and it was far too close to beg for Renjun to be able to not feel deeply unnerved. “I’ll be out in a few minutes. I promise.”

Renjun nodded, sucked in a breath, and closed the door carefully as he left him behind.

It wasn’t until he was halfway back to the table that the anger took over, and he stopped in the middle of the room for the sole purpose of trying to breathe through the tremor in his hands that had begun. There was so much to connect and disconnect and try to parse without jumping to conclusions, but the strongest intersections of all the threads were horrible at best.

He took three breaths, clenching and unclenching his hands once, twice, so he didn’t scream, then made the rest of the way back to the table. He dropped into his chair with a strained breath and met Jeno's eyes. He looked more awake than he had the entire day, but at what cost?

Chenle leaned over just slightly to direct what he said to Renjun. _“Should we leave?”_ he asked in Mandarin. _“I don’t know. I feel like we should.”_

_“You don’t have to do that,”_ Renjun said, and didn’t appreciate how he sounded as upset as he was, but he was so fucking bad at hiding his anger and knew it. _“Unless you want to.”_

Chenle nodded once, searching Renjun’s eyes, before taking Jisung’s hand and pulling him right up out of his chair like a lanky ragdoll. “Walk me home,” he said, strong and abruptly sunny like he’d made the decision that now was the time to go supernova. Jisung blinked, but didn’t ask why and helped Chenle quickly finish up the rest of their cup before being tugged right out the front door.

Jeno sank back in his chair just slightly, lips turned into something plainly thoughtful.

Renjun was at a loss, but mostly angry and trying to clear the dog rolling in. He propped his elbows on the table and set his face in his hands. A moment wrung itself by as they sat in silence, and Renjun wanted to gnaw the skin off his palms. 

He held his breath. 

He held his breath and counted seconds.

And the feeling passed.

Dropping his hands, he let out the air he’d trapped in his core and looked Jeno in the eyes. He really, really liked the glasses and how they framed his face, and it had been a while since he noticed the tiny mole Jeno had under his eye. It was so clear now under the lens of his glasses. “How are you feeling?”

“Worried,” Jeno said plainly, fingers tapping on the cup between his palms.

“Yes, but,” Renjun said, sighing a laugh that was too strained to have mirth, “you. How are _you_ feeling?”

Jeno hesitated, smile tiny, thoughtful and nearly curious. “I’ve been better, but I’ll be okay.”

Renjun held in another sigh and dropped his eyes, nudging his bowl around. He couldn’t be frustrated with Jeno for such a mild answer. As far as he could tell, Jeno _was _mild and seemed to, in an acquaintanceship (he wanted it to be more), attempt to keep it that way. Or maybe Renjun and Jaemin were just going insane and he was simply balancing them out, for which Renjun couldn’t blame him.

“Will you ever tell us what’s going on?” he asked, though being so blunt was not being kind to the vibe at their table. Jaemin’s yoghurt slowly melted into a puddle at the bottom of his cup.

Jeno held Renjun’s gaze for some seconds, looking simultaneously fond and uncomfortable, which was a bizarre mix. Renjun was hardly offended, though—he mostly wanted to hold this damn boy’s hand. He suspected it would exorcise him of the dredges of his anger. “Yes,”Jeno said eventually. “I’ll be fine in the meantime.”

Renjun nodded and smiled at him, and the way Jeno smiled back was full and so fucking aggressively cute that he had to grip the table for a moment. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said, though it wasn’t his most gracefully sounded statement, and Jeno’s smile twisted into soft amusement.

“Okay.”

Jeno’s smile died, though, when the door opened from the bathroom nook. Jaemin came out with his elbows tucked in and his posture small enough to hide if need be. He came over softly with the shakiest smile Renjun had ever seem him give, and he reclaimed his spot with a hand placed gingerly on the seat before lowering himself down onto it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Renjun bit his tongue before he snapped that Jaemin should never say that. Had no reason to. Don’t you dare. He inhaled instead, and held his breath, and let Jeno speak.

“For what? You’ll get to see Chenle and Jisung again, probably,” Jeno said. “Assuming they get home safe.”

Jaemin faltered, blinking, then cast a glance toward Renjun, who only let out the breath he had been holding. “Your frozen yoghurt’s melted,” Renjun said, feeling kind of lame but grateful all at once.

Again, Jaemin pinked around his edges, but this time it wasn’t out of embarrassment. Probably. Renjun hoped. “Right,” Jaemin breathed. “Uh. That’s okay. I like it like this, too.” He pulled his cup back toward him and nudged one of the fish into a tailspin in the melt. Renjun wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.

“How are you feeling?” Jeno asked.

“Super bad, actually,” Jaemin said, lowering his spoon from where he’d raised it for a mouthful of yoghurt. “But a little better. Thank you.” And then he startled, like something invisible had hit him, and jumped a hand to his back pocket. “Your phone! Renjun, I almost forgot.”

He passed it over like he was handling a very meek hamster despite the crack right across the screen. Renjun was endeared, but took it back less gently. “Is Mark coming to get you?”

Jaemin’s mouth opened, then closed, and he laughed just a little. “No. He's stuck doing a group project with girls who won't stop flirting with him, so.”

Jeno gave a tiny laugh before getting up to dispose of his cup. He offered a hand out to take Renjun’s as well, which he accepted.

“Yukhei’s still at dance practice, so Yuqi’s picking me up and dropping me off at home,” he admitted, and to Renjun, Jaemin already looked brighter.

“Is Yukhei Lucas?” Renjun asked, watching as Jaemin fished out a candy from his veritable soup. Honestly, though, it probably just tasted like a yoghurt drink.

“Oh,” Jaemin said, “yeah. I’m sorry. Lucas is his white name.”

Renjun snorted so hard he was just grateful he didn’t have anything in his mouth. Jeno slid back into their table, but a seat closer to Renjun this time, and Renjun tried not to fidget. “He’s on the dance team? I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance,” Renjun continued.

Jaemin brightened instantly, leaning forward and forgetting his cup entirely. “He’s the dance captain, actually. I’ve wanted to join the team for years but my parents won’t let me.”

Renjun tried not to freeze, but Jeno was apparently his lucky charm because he jumped in at the right moment and time. “You should join winter guard. You can tell you parents you’re in jazz band instead.”

It was as if Jeno had slapped Jaemin with a particularly soft and pleasant pillow—stun-worthy, but agreeable. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jeno said, eyes crinkling. “We always want more people anyway, and I can help you practice before the season starts if you want.”

“Huh,” said Jaemin just as the shop door tinkled again and Yuqi slid in. She had her hair up in a bun and a polo on that marked her as someone who had gotten caught getting ready for work. Rather than look exasperated, though, she looked relieved when she saw Jaemin, and Renjun felt himself relax. “I’ll think about it?” he said, and stood up with his cup in hand. “Thank you for inviting me.” His smile was pale, but bright. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you,” said Renjun as Jeno gave a little wave, and they watched him leave for Yuqi’s car. She tucked him into a side hug despite Jaemin being taller and lankier than she, and somehow, it was a picture that made Renjun incredibly anxious all over again. “Is he going to be safe?” Renjun asked partially to the air but mostly to Jeno.

Jeno didn’t answer for a moment, and it was only when Renjun looked at him that he realized he was being assessed. Renjun straightened. “You also think something’s not right,” said Jeno and sighed, sagging into his chair, eyebrows scrunched.

Renjun didn’t know what to say about that, but hearing it out loud was not great. “Walk me home,” Renjun said instead, and watched Jeno’s eyebrows hitch with the hint of a smile.

“Are you close?”

“I’m not far.” It would be a twenty minute walk, which was reasonable in his opinion, but might put Jeno very out of the way. “You don’t have to,” he said.

“No,” Jeno said, and stood up. “It sounds nice. I’d love to.”

Something about the way Jeno answered made Renjun’s chest tighten, but he stood up after him and took the lead anyway. “You’re not allowed to stalk me,” Renjun teased.

Jeno laughed, letting Renjun hold the door open for him. “Noted.” 

The air was even warmer now than it had been earlier, but Renjun ran colder than most, so for the first five or so minutes, the walk would be entirely tolerable.

The walk itself was peaceful and quiet for the first while—in part because Renjun had to text his mom. Jeno texted someone, though it wasn’t necessarily a parent. When Jeno put his phone away, he put his hand out, bold and shy all at once, and said, “Can I hold your hand?”

The net effect that single question had on Renjun’s brain was numbing and horrendously messy. Rather than opt for aggression, or run away, he just slapped his hand into Jeno’s and locked their fingers as tight as he could manage without trying to break them. “You like Jaemin, too, right?” he said, and it came off a little rough, but hopefully the hand-holding mitigated it. Jeno’s hand was calloused and cool.

Jeno hesitated, but kept in step, and his answer was firm as they crossed the plaza’s parking lot. “Yes,” he said. “Is that okay?” Renjun could feel his gaze on the side of his face, but he could make himself meet it.

“I’d be a hypocrite if I told you it wasn’t,” he replied, trying not to curl into himself internally. Jeno squeezed his hand, and his heart hiccuped. He kept his eyes still resolutely forward.

“This is alright, then?” Jeno asked, lifting their interlocked fingers, and Renjun nearly hissed, “If you let go, I’ll run away.” Jeno held his hand much tighter after that.

* * *

When they talked, it was mostly about nothing and anything—the little things neither of them knew yet. Favorite colors, food, hobbies, music. What got Jeno into color guard (dance) and Renjuninto percussion (piano). Dream outfit, how they pour their milk and eat their french fries, opinion on climate change and the border, whether aliens exist or not. All necessary things for knowing how tolerable and compatible they were (all clear).

Jeno only let go of Renjun’s hand once, and it was simply to alleviate sweaty palms. He switched sides, gave a nervous smile, and waited for Renjun to lock their fingers.

“All this because I chucked some tape at you and sang pretty?” Renjun asked when they’d finally reached his door.

“Your house is nice,” Jeno said before answering, then looked mildly, dare Renjun say, flustered. “I’ve liked you longer than just that,” he admitted, “but those too.”

“What?”

“I’ll—I’ll tell you sometime.”

“Jeno?”

He kissed Renjun’s cheek, even though he almost missed, then slid away from his house and grip like some sort of guilty confessant. For some reason, Renjun expected the kiss to sting, but it was clumsy and soft enough that it left a phantom touch where it had already left, and Jeno was waving, and Renjun didn’t have enough guts to make him stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what your thoughts are. There were so many different ways this chapter could have gone and I could only choose one path. I hope none of you are disappointed ;;
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	13. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first scene is unpleasant and painful for Jaemin. If you aren't in a good place right now, please come back later ♡  
TW: various abuses

The front door clicked closed as he slid into the little foyer. He’d debated between trying to enter silently and announcing himself, and he never knew which would soften the blow.

“I’m home!” he managed, and somehow it didn’t taste like fear.

He heard a pan being dropped into the sink, though, and flinched before his mother could witness it.

“Oh, are you now?” she asked from the archway, hands on her hips, makeup pristine even as wisps of hair slipped out of her topknot. 

“Yes,” he said, quiet, tried to come off confused and smiling rather than afraid.

“Why’d you turn your phone off, Jaemin?”

He hesitated, forcing himself to resist a swallow, and scrunched his brows, moving further into the house and gently dropping his bag next to the entrance table. “What?”

She breathed out through her nose loud enough for it to be audible, and her smile was not a smile at all. “I’m really tired of you playing dumb. If you were at a band practice, why’d you turn your phone off?”

Again, he let himself hesitate, then brought out his phone to turn it on, trying to calm his heart, trying to play the part because being honest had never served him well. “Oh,” he said as he swiped up and saw the orange logo of airplane mode. “That must have been an accident.”

“Was your location being at a shop on parkway before your phone was turned off an accident, too, Jaemin?” she hissed, and it took every single inch of self control he had not to step back toward the front door and begin the descent into hyperventilation.

“I was at school,” he said, and laced his voice with confusion. “Yuqi just dropped me off here so I could get home faster.”

“Bullshit.” She took steps toward him, and he hugged himself in some pitiful form of protection. “That’s _bullshit,_ Jaemin. Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“I’m not—” he choked. She was an arm’s length away. He wanted to run.

“Do you know how stupid I looked in front of your little friends, you brat?” she spat, and Jaemin began to shake. “What did you do? Hide behind the counter and show your pretty eyes to the employee?”

“No. No, mom. I don’t know what you’re—”

“Do you like making a fool of me? As if I haven’t already given you everything?”

Jaemin sucked in a breath and felt the sting of those words in ways he could never manage to understand.

“Funny,” she said, so close now she would be able to see his eyelashes flutter. “Funny how I threw away my whole education so I could raise your ungrateful ass. And I’m stuck here like stupid bitch trying to make sure my own fucking son is a responsible adult and you’re sneaking around behind my back.”

“I’m not—” Jaemin choked out. “Mom, I’m so grateful. I’m—”

“Did you leave the school or not?”

“No!”

Her slap was so hard he staggered and saw spots, cheekbone stinging like she had pressed him with a brand. He sucked in a breath, then another, trying desperately to clear the fog rolling in as he stared at the entrance rug.

“You think I’m stupid, Jaemin?”

“No,” he moaned. “Mom, I would never say that.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes—they scared him and he was too close to tears.

“And yet you keep lying to me. Do you think you can do better than me? Show me up? Flaunt your fucking charms when you’ve taken everything from me?”

“Mom—”

When she pushed, it was with all her weight and hurt and fury, and he hit the floor like a tumbling child, palms slamming just beyond the carpet into the tile and sending little metal zips of pain up through his arms.

This was his mom above him. So beautiful.

She’d raised him. Once upon a time she sang him lullabies and used weird voices when she read him picture books.

She hated him.

Jaemin burst into tears.

* * *

Jaemin woke just before four in the morning with a shudder, hands cramping around the sheets at his waist. His body ached from too many factors, but the pressure in his chest came first and he _hated._ He hated himself as his tailbone throbbed and there was a lasting pain behind his eyes from—god.

God.

He’d cried in front of his mother again.

And he hated himself for it.

He could still feel the push, the fall, the pain in his wrists as he fumbled against the tile, the way she seemed as big as when she had been when he’d been a child, and rather than stand back up he had cried.

Jaemin closed his eyes and bit his tongue as a new wave of hurt crashed over him.

He reached for the pillow under his head and dragged it into his arms, biting into the cover to keep himself from making a sound as heat swept through him and dared him to keep the tears at bay.

The worst part had come after the fall, where he’d been sobbing, and she jeered once, and he’d cried out a question he could not take back but wished desperately that he could.

Because the response she gave him would absolutely never leave him, and he didn’t think he could live with himself and it at the same time.

_“Why can’t you love me?”_

_“You think I ever loved you?”_

* * *

He left the house at four-sixteen with coffee in his blood and absolutely nothing else because he couldn’t _stomach _anything else. Not only that, but any food not designated specifically for him that he so much as touched was akin to sin at his house. (“If you can’t even join us for a meal, then you’ll eat nothing.” And so he ate nothing.)

The morning was cold, which was what he wanted. He felt numb on his way to school, and his skin felt numb enough to endure over his awkward bones.

He took one full breath per eight steps. Inhale for four, exhale for four. Just like the breathing exercises Ms. M led them through that made him feel lightheaded if he forgot to bend his knees.

Campus was just rising out of darkness, husk-like in its half-asleep, and he circled around the back for the gate that would lead him into the band room—so long as it was open, anyway.

“Jaemin?”

He startled and almost hit the corner of the building wall with his shoulder. “What?” he said, bewildered and disoriented, and thought he was full-on hallucinating when Jeno stood up from next to the band room door. “Do you live at school?” he blurted, and when Jeno laughed Jaemin wondered if he had truly ever woken up. Just the day before, getting Jeno to laugh was difficult, but this was a steady, easy laugh that scrunched his eyes into half-moons.

“You know I don’t. You’ve seen my house,” Jeno said. His hair was styled away from his forehead, a little messy. It looked so pretty in blond, and Jeno hadn’t put a scratch of makeup on yet. His bare face wasn’t perfect, but it was. “My dad always drops me off this early.”

“Oh.”

Jeno tilted his head, and only then did Jaemin realize he was wearing glasses again. He felt stupid about how much he liked them and how they sat on Jeno’s nose. Jaemin’s fingers tugged at the hem of his shirt.

“Are you okay?” Jeno asked, and the words snagged in Jaemin’s chest like a butterfly caught in a spiderweb.

Jaemin floundered, distantly upset and almost angry that Jeno always caught him at his worst times.

His absolute lowest times where there was only his next breath that had the will to live.

“No,” Jaemin strangled out, fingers bunching in his shirt. “No, I’m really not.”

Jeno took a step closer, bruised hands gently offered. “Can I hug you?”

“Please,” Jaemin gasped. “Please.”

Jeno did not smell like chlorine or alcohol. He smelled like mild deodorant and lavender, but still like Jeno, and Jeno didn’t mind when Jaemin pressed his lips to his shoulder and dissolved into tears. He just held tighter, and smoothed a hand down Jaemin’s back like a wordless, soft mantra.

“What’s wrong?” Jeno asked eventually when he’d held him for so long that the campus was a little brighter and there would be other students arriving soon.

“My parents don’t love me,” Jaemin said, and it was not a weight off his chest. It hurt. It hurt like hell and it hurt even worse every time he admitted it to someone new.

“Well, they’re really missing out,” said Jeno in just barely a whisper, and squeezed him like it might help put him back together. “You’re amazing.”

And as much as it felt like it had to be a lie, Jaemin wanted to believe it, so he sank into the words and further into Jeno’s arms and tried to hold onto the compliment like it was actually a lifeline rather than a handful of sounds.

“I want you to teach me how to toss,” Jaemin mumbled into Jeno’s shirt, sniffing through the last of his tears.

“I can do that,” Jeno said, and Jaemin rather thought Jeno could do anything.

* * *

“I think I can ask Ms. M to let you sit out this morning,” said Risi, taking one look at Jaemin as he slid a reed in against his mouthpiece before twisting her mouth up into something between pity and concern. She was their section leader and did a damn good job of keeping track of her kids—Jaemin had never felt like an exception.

“It’s fine. It’ll distract me,” Jaemin said, rubbing a palm against his eyes before tightening his ligature and closing his case to lug back to the locker room.

“Are you sure? Have you eaten this morning?”

“Yes,” he lied, and slid his case onto his shelf. He gave Risi a smile to ease whatever nerves his appearance had given her. He had tried his best to fix his features with some makeup but he was a piss-ugly cryer so. “Thank you for worrying. I promise I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, stubborn, fingers clasped against the keys brass keys of her saxophone. “Jaemin, you look like shit.”

He breathed out a jokingly injured breath and persisted in his smile. “I’ve heard worse.”

“That’s not funny,” she whined, trailing after him like she _wasn’t_ his section leader who could beat his ass at jazz running. “Margot said she saw bruising on you last week.”

“I’m a hazard,” he insisted, speed-walking now after Risi flashed him the time on her phone. They had like…three minutes to get on the field. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Ms. M hadn’t been late opening the door and he hadn’t spent six minutes trying to look presentable in the bathroom. “I ran into a wall just an hour ago.”

Risi made a frustrated noise as they very nearly sprinted across the faculty parking lot to get to the football field. There wasn’t a lot more time to bicker, though, when they were falling into the marching block seconds before the drum major called them to attention. “You’re going to talk to me later,” Risi managed between her lips, otherwise unmoving.

“No I won’t,” Jaemin said, happy to have an excuse to not look anyone in the eyes as he stared right at the back of a second-year trumpet’s head. They hadn’t managed to tame their bedhead, which was rather endearing in a removed, you’re-not-Renjun-or-Jeno-so-meh kind of way.

He was sure Risi would have attempted to say more if it weren’t for the the drum major starting eight-and-eights, slow, easy enough for him to breath in for four, out for four. Just like that morning.

* * *

If his body ached that morning, it was ready to decompose by the time he made it through zero, first, and second periods. Zero was band, but so was second, and Risi was downright harassing him to drink water every time Ms. M gave them the time for it.

The part that made it all kind of worth it was the tiny space between first and second period, though, where Renjun hooked him right before he entered the band room. For the first moment, Renjun’s grip was tight around his wrist, then gentle and warm as his fingertips pressed into Jaemin’s palm.

“Have you been crying?” Renjun asked, gaze so firm and intense Jaemin would have felt pinned if he wasn’t so charmed.

Jaemin managed something between a sigh and a laugh, barely resisting the urge to use Renjun’s grip to draw him closer. “Do I look that bad?”

Renjun’s lips tightened. As far as Jaemin could tell, Renjun looked well, so at least one of them was keeping it together. “Jeno was right—you haven’t looked bad a day in your life,” Renjun said, and did it with so much adamance and a tiny hint of frustration that Jaemin’s chest sparked and restricted all at once. At the same time, Renjun’s features softened, and Jaemin would have never guess the pinched boy he’d bumped into that one day could look like this. “I just want you two to be okay.”

He knew he looked absolutely idiotic with his mouth open, not sure at all what to say, but there it was—he didn’t know what to say. He could lie to his mom and he could lie to his section leader, but Renjun didn’t deserve his lies. Jaemin took a breath and tried not to preemptively flinch at how cheesy his truth would sound. “I feel best when I'm with you guys.”

It was worth it just to see the almost angry blush that took over Renjun’s cheekbones and ears. “I’ll see you at lunch,” he muttered, and let Jaemin go with the ghost of a touch against his own fingers.

Just to exacerbate the issue, Jaemin was very close to telling Renjun’s back that he loved him. Just to tease. Just to see the boy blush further. But that was a little too close to the truth, wasn’t it?

* * *

Renjun almost slammed himself down onto the bench when lunch rolled around and Jaemin nearly startled out of his skin. “I brought you lunch,” Renjun said and dropped a paper bag on top of Jaemin’s notes. He immediately opened his own lunch and ignored him completely like his knee wasn't pressed up against his or that he hadn’t just. Like. Given him a lunch.

“What?” was all Jaemin could manage to say.

Renjun did not answer him, only unsnapping his tupperware and slinging his metal chopsticks out of their casing like a threat on Jaemin’s life.

He could take the message.

Inside the paper bag was an apple and a small tupperware of fried rice nestled against some wooden chopsticks.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” Renjun murmured, refusing to look at him as he stabbed into a scallion pancake. “My mom said most people like fried rice.”

Jaemin had to grip the table to stop the tiny tremble that rushed out from his throat. It was only his luck it didn’t usher in tears, but it did feel a lot like a mental breakdown. “Did you make this,” Jaemin said, and was distantly horrified by how it sounded like he’d swallowed a stretched-out frog.

Renjun was looking at him, now, and it was Jaemin who didn’t want eye-contact. He fished for the chopsticks with his fingers shaking and split them apart, just trying to keep his head.

“Kind of. My mom shoved me out of the kitchen at some point, though,” he said, and as funny as his words were, his voice was soft. As Jaemin arranged the chopsticks in his grip and took a shaky inhale, Renjun reached for his free hand and laced their fingers together. His fingers were kind of strange—there were callouses in weird places and tape in other places, but never had Jaemin given less of a fuck.

Renjun went back to eating, chopsticks clumsy in his left hand, and if suffocating on his heart was a possible feat, Jaemin was doing it.

The least he could do was wiggle his fingers into a more secure grip and dig in, ignoring the prickling in his chest. The fried rice tasted like how Jaemin imagined home tasted like—some unnameable similarity between this and everything he had ever eaten at Mark and Yukhei’s houses. Halfway through the tupperware, he felt like he wouldn’t be able to swallow anything if he didn’t say the words clogging up his throat.

He inhaled, throat tense, and traced the features of Renjun’s profile as he looked out over the quad where the geese tortured the lawns. He was nibbling on the tips of his chopsticks, quietly zoned out, and Jaemin really hoped he wasn’t going to be putting his foot in his mouth.

“I really like you.”

Renjun’s gaze sharpened visibly and he turned his head to look at Jaemin, mouth slanting in something so fucking indescribably fond and clever all at once. “And if I told you it was mutual?”

Jaemin shuddered before he could stop it, and he couldn’t stop his response either. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and watched as Renjun’s expression hardened.

“I’m not.” Renjun’s hold on his hand was almost painful, but rather than everything else painful done to him, Jaemin found it rather comforting. The pressure released as Jaemin tried not to drown in his own panic and wordlessness. “I also like Jeno, though. If you ever think you’re not as good as him, I’ll beat your ass.”

It was all Jaemin could do to choke on his own breath, on his own throat, and give a sort of frantic laugh. “Oh my god I’m fucked.” Renjun’s painful hold on his hand returned, and honestly Jaemin would kill to hold his hand all day. 

Jaemin felt like he was pawing at his own slipping sense of reality, but he could admit at least this much: “I like him too.”

Again, Renjun’s hold released, this time with a sigh of relief. “Then we’re all set.” Jaemin watched, stunned as Renjun gave a short, awkward press of his lips against Jaemin’s blood-drained knuckles. Perhaps he was the one holding too hard. He relaxed, blinking, trying to etch this feeling into his bones.

“What?” Jaemin asked, feeling numb and like too much all at once.

“Ask Jeno.” Renjun took another clumsy bite of his lunch in favor of keeping a hold on Jaemin. His heart throbbed.

At risk of sounding fairly stupid, he chose not to ask “what” again. He only focused on eating the rest of the lunch Renjun had given him and swallowing down his butterflies and fears.

* * *

He could swear his left hand tingled throughout the rest of the day, and when he met Jeno next to the drama room between faculty parking and band, he felt remarkably better in comparison to that morning. Jeno beamed at him for absolutely no reason at all as far as Jaemin could tell, slipping two flags out of his bag.

“Doing better?” Jeno asked, smoothing his hands over one of the the rods before zipping his bag up again. The cloth of one flag was a rust orange color, a strip of gold stitched through. It was less than pristine, but it had been for their show first year, so it only made sense.

“Do I look better?” Jaemin asked, approaching despite how nervous it made him. Jeno had that effect, and especially now that he’d confessed about liking him to Renjun less than a handful of hours prior. Despite that, Jeno was somehow still comfortable to drift around—like he was some sort of incredibly patient and observant star.

Jeno handed over the flag and nudged him toward the patch of grass without a single touch to him, which somehow made Jaemin even more skittish. “You look like you might be happier,” Jeno said, words obvious in how carefully they were picked. Jaemin turned his nose up a little at him, then almost jumped when Jeno reached to adjust Jaemin’s grip on the flag. “This is how you hold it. I won’t teach you how to toss until you learn how to move the flag first, if that’s okay.”

“Oh,” Jaemin said, settling a little and holding the rod firmer.

“Relax,” Jeno prompted, lips quirking a little into a smile. “If you hold on too hard, your movements will be stiff.”

With an exhale pushing past his lips, Jaemin loosened his grip again and forced his shoulders down. Before Jeno could speak again, though, he needed to ask. “Renjun told me to ask you something.”

It was truly fascinating to watch Jeno freeze up, his eyes widening. There was a little twitch in his fingers that Jaemin caught, and well. That was cute. “Huh,” Jeno said, a little stiff, and Jaemin grinned because he didn’t know someone else’s nerves could look so darling. He wanted to push Jeno’s glasses up his nose with his fingertips.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask,” Jaemin admitted, a little tickled and still smiling, “but you look very cute right now.”

Something like a look of torture blinked across Jeno’s features, but it wasn’t bad, Jaemin thought. It was more like Jaemin had made him squirm internally, and that was delightful. “I think I know what you’re supposed to ask,” Jeno said, sounding a little strained but also fond simultaneously.

“Looks like it.” Jaemin smiled and wiggled the flag in his hands so the cloth moved back and forth. Jeno was distracted only for a moment by the flash of dull gold before looking back at Jaemin. Somewhere in those two or so seconds, Jeno had settled a little.

“I like you,” Jeno said, and he said it so earnestly that it left Jaemin stunned. “You’re supposed to ask if I like you, and I do.”

For the second time that day, Jaemin was caught with his mouth open, words impossible to retrieve for an unhealthy amount of time. “Oh. Oh wow. Okay.”

Jeno raised his eyebrows, but it looked more anxious than anything.

“We all like each other,” Jaemin said numbly, perfectly aware of how stupid he sounded but unable to do anything about it. He didn’t fail to notice how Jeno’s eyes closed for a prolonged moment, though, and the way a tension he would have never known was there seemed to leak out of him.

Jeno gave a steadying exhale, and when he opened his eyes again, he was smiling. “Alright. I need to show you how to spin.” He moved back to grab his own flag, eyes somehow aglitter.

“Wait, seriously? I just—you just—”

“Let me show you,” Jeno said, stubbornly bright, and Jaemin was agape. “Watch, please.”

“Hello?” Jaemin insisted, but Jeno gave him this _look _and he snapped his mouth closed just so he could pout and, yes, _watch_ as Jeno trucked onward.

He could corner Jeno later, and then corner himself even later in order to have the breakdown begging to be released at the back of his tongue. Because if this was truly happening, he was actually truly and honestly fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^^
> 
> There's so much that happened in this chapter that I'm really not sure what to say in my own notes. Ahhhh nonetheless I hope everyone enjoyed ♡ Let me know how you're feeling? I've absolutely loved hearing from everyone on the way ;; Thank you so much.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	14. Renjun

The day leading up to Donghyuck's arrival was a blur. He checked, of course, with earnest intent that Jaemin and Jeno were okay and in one piece and wouldn’t vanish in a cloud of smoke like friendly but upsetting hallucinations. They were fine. A lot of fine. They were still upsetting—that would never change, apparently.

“You’re excited,” Jaemin said, pausing in the midst of taking a bite of the sandwich Renjun had made for him this time. He’d reacted with hesitation and guilt this time around, like accepting food the first time was a brief oversight and something he never should have done. Renjun may have quite literally twisted his arm into this one.

“What, am I giving off spores?” Renjun snipped, and Jaemin wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“You’re not a _mushroom_. You’ve just got restless leg and I have some context.” He took a healthy bite of the sandwich, humming for the third time in appreciation. Renjun got the hint, and he wished Jaemin would stop doing it. It was making him blush.

Letting out the extra air trapped in his lungs, Renjun conceded. “Yeah. Yeah I’m excited,” he said, and attempted to forcibly stop his leg. The buzz traveled elsewhere to nestle somewhere in his brain, playing squeaky jazz.

“You don’t like Donghyuck like that, right?” Jaemin said, approach delicate, and it was Renjun’s turn to wrinkle his nose.

“Don’t be gross.”

“Ight.”

Like the nervous wreck Renjun _always _was, he had positioned himself a good three inches from Jaemin while still sitting on the same bench. One more inch and his thigh would be in danger of aborting the seat altogether.

It made him jump when Jaemin reached to place his hand over Renjun’s knee, and his skin prickled up in panicked defiance. “I’m really excited to meet him.” Jaemin’s eyes were so sincere Renjun nearly bit the inside of his cheek.

“Don’t be_ gross_,” Renjun repeated lamely because he failed to think of a different rebuttal, faded this time as warmth traveled up his leg.

Jaemin grinned, “Where’s the fun in that?” and squeezed his knee right before Renjun slapped him off with an angry, flustered blush.

* * *

**From: Jeno Lee**

_sorry to miss you! lmk if donghyuck gets in safe?_

**From: Jaemin Na**

_Omg yeah and say hi for us!!_

Renjun tried to tolerate the surge of embarrassment fighting for dominance in his chest while still enjoying the feeling of silly excitement at his fingertips as he stared at the groupchat. It was more than just the prospect of seeing Donghyuck again. He’d remembered that assessments were on Friday only periodically throughout the day, and only cared to a degree, which he supposed was what things were like when he was a giddy degree of happy.

_“What? Let me in on the secret,” _said his father, smoothing his fingers along the wheel as they waited at a stoplight.

_“No.”_

His dad sighed, pulling these old-man puppy eyes at the red light. _“My son has never trusted me.”_

_“Well, there’s always Ruolan,” _Renjun said, keeping all sympathy out of his voice in favor of allowing the teasing to continue.

_“Your sister abandoned me _years_ ago,” _his father said, easing on the gas pedal as the light turned green. _“It started when she stopped lying to me about liking my tofu.”_

Renjun snorted, just keeping in a laugh. His sister was in the right about being honest about that particular thing. He sighed. _“The boys I like are being nice,” _he admitted. _“It’s embarrassing.”_

Just like Ruolan, his father hesitated for the barest second, blinking awkwardly as he tried to process certain information while still being an overly-safe driver. After that tiny moment, he bulled onward. _“Are they not always nice to you?” _The question came off about as tender as his dad got without the influence of a blue moon, which Renjun was grateful for on most days. Home felt accepting but not emotionally demanding for him like this—he was already high-strung enough.

_“They are always nice to me,” _Renjun promised. _“It just feels different, now.”_

His dad hummed and let it be, and perhaps Renjun would harp on about them another time until he heard the fond complaint that he wouldn’t shut up (only after he started repeating the same things and his dad felt tender for too long; there was a limit to how much anyone could take of their child being happy before it got overwhelming, probably).

* * *

They arrived at the airport at 4:40 and lounged around in the seats. Renjun’s dad read a book he’d lugged along on comparative politics—he’d been trying to finish it for years, now—while Renjun checked his phone every three minutes and tried not to pick at his scabs. Every once in a while, his dad would pull him into some thoughtful line from the literature and then once again leave him be to stare at the rotating baggage claim or grey-tiled stairs.

At 5:03, a distant feminine voice over the intercom welcomed everyone arriving, listing all the things available to do in their county like a salesperson bent to exude their positives. Renjun, jittering through his blood to his fingertips, stood up and left his dad behind, pressing himself gently up against the stanchions to watch the feet descending the stairs and escalators. With each one, he tried to guess which route Donghyuck would take, what shoes he was wearing, whether he’d really wear those pants—nope, someone else.

Amidst trying to decide whether Donghyuck would wear pink boots as a joke or not, Renjun was interrupted by seeing the boy skip down the steps about twice as fast as everyone else, backpack hugged to one shoulder.

“Duckie!” Renjun blurted like a fucking moron, and Donghyuck’s face lit up like the sun hitting a lake frozen over. He jumped the last three steps, dashed forward, and ducked right under the stanchion to pincer Renjun’s waist with his fingertips so suddenly it made him abort a scream. “You_ fuck_—”

“Injunnie,” Donghyuck cooed, and knocked a hug into him as if he were some testing dummy instead of a living, breathing, anxiety-prone sieve of wet noodles, “you look so good!”

As Donghyuck squeezed, Renjun wheezed with a hardly-contained smile, “Your hair’s brown. You look like a poodle.” and hugged him back. With the bigger shows of affection over, Donghyuck’s hold was warm and firm.

“I missed you,” Donghyuck said, confident, aglow.

“I missed you too,” Renjun said back with no room for denial. It would be energy wasted for no good reason on one of his favorite people in the world.

* * *

Renjun’s home was no strange world to Donghyuck, and he reclaimed it like a soldier returning from war. “Oh my _god_ I missed this house,” Donghyuck said, inhaling deep through his nose as if he could incorporate the smell of chrysanthemum and cooked rice into his bones.

“Is it Donghyuck?” Renjun’s mom called from beyond the kitchen, the sound of her steps bringing her closer.

“Yes, ma’am!” said Donghyuck as Renjun’s dad took his carryon and backpack in his hands and made his way to Renjun’s room. Renjun popped up after him, anxious about the sheet music he had spread out across his floor and had forgotten to put away. Among other things.

_“Did you forget to clean your room?” _his dad asked, wry amusement wrung into his wrinkles. 

_“It’s mostly clean. I can take them,” _Renjun offered, reaching to try to snag the handle of Donghyuck’s carryon. Down on the first floor, Renjun could hear Donghyuck chatting with his mother about Michigan and the weather over there.

_“No,” _his dad said, dodging his attempt, _“I hope embarrassment will be a good motivator.” _He only set down one of the luggages to open Renjun’s door and witness the disaster. Renjun let out something between a whine and a groan, letting his forehead fall into the doorway as his dad sighed at the mess. _“You can come down again once you’ve cleaned up a little.”_

_“I was excited and forgot.”_

_“I know. Now is your opportunity to remember. We won’t start dinner without you.” _His dad set both of Donghyuck’s luggages down just inside the door and trotted back down the stairs, leaving Renjun to look at his unmade bed, sheet music disaster, abandoned clothes. The lot.

* * *

By the time Renjun got back downstairs and joined them for dinner, Donghyuck had resettled himself into his home away from home. He’d been a fixture in Renjun’s life since the sixth grade, and their houses had been interchangeable. Donghyuck had lived just three blocks away—two blocks if Renjun hopped fences—and they’d been liberal with the visits they spent on each other. Because of that, Donghyuck knew everything about Renjun’s house that he did himself. He knew his parents well enough to hold prolonged conversation even with the language gap, and he was on teasing terms with Ruolan.

There was never any reason for Renjun to be jealous, and the truth held here, too. He was glad to have his best friend back if only for a sparse handful of days.

Dinner was warm and lively with Donghyuck, who threw a little personal spice into conversations, but Renjun was relieved to throw himself into his bedroom and rest.

“Was the flight okay?” Renjun asked, front-down on his bed and reaching for Donghyuck with one hand. Donghyuck did not hesitate to lie on top of him and cuddle into his neck.

“Someone vomited in the seat in front of me, but otherwise it was fine,” Donghyuck muttered, voice tilted in amusement.

“Gross.” 

“They were like…super drunk.”

Renjun made a noise of sympathy, but was mostly just enjoying Donghyuck’s weight on top of him. His family wasn’t regularly affectionate in this way, so there was comfort in something so simple as this.

“So what’s the plan?” Donghyuck asked, lifting a little to pull one of Renjun’s accidental hairs from between his lips with indifference. “Am I waking up at gross o’clock?”

Renjun shrugged, feeling a little like he was sinking further into his sheets and mattress like the final achievement of relaxation. “If you want. Ms. M has us doing full runs the last three days of this week to prepare for Saturday.”

“Show?”

Renjun hummed. “Kinda. We have the whole thing completed now, and it’s for the parents.” He’d done two at this point, and it really wasn’t as much of a ritual as it seemed. His parents came, of course, and they watched and enjoyed, but then life went on, and it was as if none of it ever happened.

“Oh,” Donghyuck said, and Renjun could feel his smile against his nape. “Fun. That means I get to see it, too.” Maybe it would be different with Donghyuck, although he’d seen both the previous years’ shows, too. He’d liked them, though, and had even asked Renjun to teach him a portion of their shows on his own instrument.

As good as his parents were, they did not take the degree of interest in his passions as his own peers did—his best friend and his crushes, too (he thinks, hopes).

“So do you want to wait? You really don’t have to wake up for zero.” He reached back to touch Donghyuck’s ear, but jabbed him in the cheek instead, which made the other make a noise. “Sorry.”

“S’fine. I’ll do tomorrow, but maybe not for Thursday and Friday. We’ll see.” Donghyuck tapped Renjun’s shoulder once in warning before lifting himself mostly off him, face pressed to the back of his shoulder instead. “Will I see your boys?”

Renjun nodded, then shrugged as he twisted to rest on his side. Now that he was more used to it, he thought Donghyuck’s brown waves flattered him quite nicely. “I’ll introduce you if I can. Jeno’s in the group that spins flags and stuff. Jaemin plays saxophone.”

“I remember,” Donghyuck snorted, and Renjun would have felt embarrassed if this weren’t Donghyuck. “How’d you find them?” Donghyuck asked, as though he hadn’t already heard exactly how these two weird boys imposed themselves in his life. Of course, it was probably weirder that Renjun himself allowed, then embraced it.

Renjun sighed, pressing his nose into the pillow. “They found me. Maybe someone will find you.”

Donghyuck’s matching sigh was more weighted, and in all Renjun’s strain, it had been difficult to know just how much Donghyuck was struggling. He hoped he could alleviate even some of it—would focus on it, even, while focusing on assessments too.

“At least my parents are less stressed,” Donghyuck murmured, and closed his eyes against Renjun’s bedroom lights.

* * *

Sometimes Renjun’s alarm clock going off felt like getting paddled by defibrillators. He woke up with a gasp, confused for no reason as to why he was waking up—where he was, why he’d slept so deeply. He blurted out an apology for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, then Donghyuck was laughing and it all hit Renjun at once.

“Oh my god shut up lemme just—” Renjun slapped for his alarm, searching for the little sliding switch and hating that the alarm has blared almost a dozen times and he still hasn’t managed to shut it off. When it finally was silent, his heartbeat felt like the loudest thing in the room. “Jesus christ,” he wheezed, then forced out a sigh.

“Good morning,” Donghyuck said from the mattress on the floor, voice grainy but amused. “That could wake up the whole house.”

“It probably did,” Renjun huffed, and groaned as he stretched to switch on his bedside lamp. “We have thirty-five minutes.” 

He heard Donghyuck roll off his mattress and hit the carpet dully from the four-inch fall. “Should I even bother looking cute?”

“Not,” Renjun said, tripping his way out of his blankets, “if it takes you longer than thirty minutes.”

It ended up taking Donghyuck fifteen minutes to pick an outfit, wash his face, and fix his hair into something that looked right in its loose waves and brown. He ended up stealing one of Renjun’s only flannel shirts to tie around his waist, and Renjun, frankly, couldn’t deny him the bisexual representation.

They ended up having leftover rice and steamed eggs, then helped his mom to shove together some other things into two lunchpacks. No. Wait. Three.

“Why a third?” Donghyuck asked, licking the pad of his thumb before shoving his hands under the running water of the sink.

Renjun hesitated, then decided to allow himself one suspicion. “It’s for Jaemin. I don’t think…” Renjun hummed, unsure of how to say it, then said it anyway. “I don’t think his parents let him have lunch. I’m not sure, though.” He knew he should ask—intended to when it felt like Jaemin might not scare or lie, but for now, he was working on this assumption.

The water ran without obstruction for a good few more seconds, then Donghyuck turned it off with a blank expression that said to Renjun that he was reserving judgment. He did not bring it up again.

* * *

It got colder and colder every morning—or so it seemed to Renjun, whose stature was slight enough to draw teasing from Donghyuck that he was cold because he was _small_. “You’re going to eat shit when I end up taller than you,” Renjun shivered, and Donghyuck made a doubtful sound.

“I’ll bet against the idea of you ever being taller than me,” he said, walking beside him as they rounded the back of the school to reach the band room. Before Renjun could protest further, Donghyuck said, “God. I thought I’d die before I said I miss this place.”

Renjun buried his smile in his chilled fingers, knocking into him with his shoulder. The plan was that Donghyuck would shadow him throughout the day and ultimately distract him from everything both necessary and unnecessary. Renjun had emailed his teachers in advance and promised Donghyuck would sit at the back of the room, but honestly, they hardly needed direct proximity to entertain each other. As good as Donghyuck’s poker face was, he was really remarkable at pulling faces.

“Renjun!”

He almost bit his tongue at Jaemin’s call (it was really like a bellow—that boy had energy Renjun would never understand), but pivoted mid-step to walk backwards and acknowledge his bare-faced…partner? Anyway—he looked cute in his baggy t-shirt and jeans. He was just slipping between the carpentry class’s shed and the fence to the faculty parking lot, dark hair ruffled in something slightly more organized than a bedhead. In the cold, his cheeks were tinged a little pink.

Donghyuck looked over his shoulder as Jaemin jogged up. “Jaemin?”

“Jaemin,” Renjun confirmed, and startled properly when Jaemin immediately reached for his fingers and held his hand. Up close, he looked even sweeter, and Renjun’s nerves were heightened with Donghyuck watching, he realized.

“Are you Donghyuck?” Jaemin asked, holding out his free hand to give to Donghyuck if he wanted.

There was any number of ways Donghyuck could greet new people—from assessing glances to hooked snark—but he simply took Jaemin’s hand and smiled at him, full and friendly. “Yeah. Lee Donghyuck.” Renjun would have accepted any reaction Donghyuck had decided to give, but he was grateful for one so welcoming from his best friend. Donghyuck could be clever and shrewd and therefore totally unpredictable, but he did almost desperately want Donghyuck to offer a positive opinion of his boys.

Jaemin practically beamed at him and squeezed Donghyuck’s fingers once before letting go. “Na Jaemin. Or the other way around. Will you be here during lunch?”

With how intent he was watching the exchange, Renjun almost forgot about everything else. He would have if Jaemin didn’t shift their fingers and hold his hand more securely, pulling a little to get them walking again.

“Mhm. Assuming being back here doesn’t murder me,” Donghyuck said, and Jaemin made a humorous, delighted little sound.

The effervescence of Jaemin’s attitude was making it difficult to have even a little negativity left in Renjun’s body. Even still, worry grated into his bones at the thought that maybe Jaemin was putting on a front. Not lying, per se, but placing things on the back burner to be as sprightly as he was being. Renjun, personally, was terrible at that particular skill, but he knew his sister well enough to know how it worked.

“I’ll be there, so I’m crossing my fingers for you, Donghyuck,” Jaemin said, and Renjun finally noticed how dark his undereyes were. He fought the sinking of his stomach. “Jeno’ll probably be by the back door…” Jaemin drifted, leaning ahead to peek beyond the brick pillar blocking their view. He made a little chirping sound, reached out to snag Donghyuck’s forearm, and pulled them all faster toward the door.

“Jeno!”

Renjun heard a sharp intake of breath and just rounded the corner fast enough to watch Jeno snap out of either a deep reverie or a nap. Seeing him for the first time each day was honestly a wild game of Russian Roulette, Renjun figured, because sometimes he managed to look utterly unreal. He was eye-catching with tangerine colors around his eyes even as he blinked sleepily, glasses-free but with a cute comma-style to his bleached hair. Someday Renjun would kiss the mole under Jeno’s eye.

No. No, wait. That was too embarrassing.

“Oof,” Renjun heard Donghyuck say under his breath, and like…agreed.

“Renjun came early with his friend,” Jaemin said brightly, and released them both to offer a hand over to Jeno instead, who was slumped up against the wall of the drama room.

“Oh, gross,” Donghyuck said almost inaudibly and with absolutely no vitriol as Jeno stood and brushed himself off, “he’s taller than me.”

Renjun couldn’t help but snort, but paid attention to Jeno’s reserved smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, and unlike Jaemin, did not offer his bruised hand up for a shake. “I like your nails.”

Donghyuck eyes went the slightest bit wider before he flashed a smile, lifting his hand to display his navy nails. He’d been painting his nails since eighth grade to stop himself from biting them, then as a statement of defiance. Renjun liked doing nail art for him, though he hadn’t had the chance to do it quite yet. “I like your makeup,” Donghyuck shot back, a little more wicked than he’d been with Jaemin.

“Thank you,” Jeno said simply, kindly, and Renjun was trying to properly grasp the funny, barely-there tension present. 

He didn’t have to wonder for long, though, because as soon as Jaemin engaged in a brief exchange of words with Jeno, Donghyuck leaned in and said gently, “He’s observant.”

Renjun knew this—if Jeno wasn’t observant, he’d be downright unfathomable with how coincidental he managed to be. It felt almost relieving to hear the words out loud though.

“Is that a bad thing?” Renjun murmured, truly wondering in some ways.

Donghyuck shrugged, then smiled. “No. I’m just intimidated.”

Which explained everything. Renjun smiled, and tried not to laugh, because Donghyuck didn’t let himself be intimidated.

He was still relieved, though. On top of it all, it seemed Donghyuck didn’t hate them, which was the lowest possible bar for Renjun’s satisfaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF okay. 
> 
> 1) I am SO sorry for taking so long with this chapter. I could not for the _life_ of me find time to write over the holidays. I promise to make it up to you guys. Keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter within the next handful of days ♡  
2) this is 100% a bridge chapter—that is, nothing extremely significant is happening, here, but it's essential nonetheless.  
3) pretty sure Jeno's chapter will be after the next one!  
4) lastly, yay Donghyuck! :D any opinions on his arrival?
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	15. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: The drum major is a student who leads, directs, and controls the band. The head drum major is the one with these roles, and they often have assistant drum majors to help. Whereas the head is positioned at the 50-yard line on the tallest podium, the assistants will often be at the 30-yard lines (if there are enough of them) to help direct a band that's too spread out. If the band ever faces away from the home side of the field, an assistant will ideally be prepared at the back podium to conduct the band so they don't lose tempo.

If Jaemin had had some sense, he would have told Mark and Yukhei about Renjun and Jeno a long time ago—about how he liked them. About how he _liked_ them enough to have spiraled into a keen excitement to see either of them again. Both of them again.

As it was, he hadn’t, so there was no one to tell about Donghyuck, who made him nervous in ways he was hesitant to describe. It wasn’t nerves in the way he felt around his parents, or Renjun and Jeno, but a sort of anxious itch.

He tried not to think about the feeling further than that—was neither keen on exploring it while the day still contained both Donghyuck and Renjun, nor being honest with himself. Instead, he kept it to a fidget.

“You’re going to give yourself a split lip,” Risi said in the midst of shoving her hands in her underarms. She was right, but what else was he supposed to do? Not tear at his lips?

The morning was still dim and cold enough to force everyone in the band to yank around their instruments to adjust their sound. The dimness didn’t effect much, but the cold made the saxophones go flat as hell, and Ms. M had already snipped at everyone to “Please adjust, good god, you sound like animals.” 

Jaemin could just make out, from all the way on the other side of the field, Donghyuck crosslegged at the 20-yard line. It had made his throat seize up to see him for the first time—recognizing Renjun so easily and then not whomever he walked next to. He’d scrambled to remind himself that Renjun’s best friend was visiting and that whatever he’d felt in that moment had been utterly unwarranted. Had Donghyuck been a stranger, another band member, an ex—it didn’t matter. Renjun had a life. Other people were in it. Jaemin did not _need_ to know everything, shouldn’t know everything, know everyone, be everywhere.

Emotionally, it was a lot happening all at once. Two people were set in stone as mutual crushes, and somehow, despite that, he had no idea where he stood or who he was to them. Less than a day in and Jaemin already felt he was in over his head. He had never intended to make either of them fall for him. He was giddy now, anxious, desperate, and rapidly frayed.

Jaemin sucked in a breath and stuck out his bottom lip at his section leader, immediately making Risi roll her eyes. They were at standby for the moment while Ms. M untangled a little kink in the horn formations. They hadn’t even tackled the full runs yet because that section had to addressed first, apparently, and there was the silent, floating hope that they’d only have time to do one full run-through before they had to wrap up.

He continued gnawing at his lip and stared down the curve his section had set. Risi and he had one first year between the two of them, and the others were further down between more upperclassmen. It was their way of creating a buffer for their bouncy, wobbly marching as well as whatever sound break they created by not knowing the music.

The one next to him, Wes, was fidgeting worse than he was.

“Test today?” Jaemin asked, nodding toward him to attempt to catch his agitated attention.

The boy almost jumped, and the iron grip he’d had on his mouthpiece popped it right out. He scrambled to wiggle it back onto the neck of his sax, blushing. “No. I just.”

Jaemin wouldn’t—nearly couldn’t—dare to break formation just to try to comfort Wes. If Ms. M noticed, she’d pull a muscle kicking his ass, but she couldn’t stop him from leaning to brush Wes’s shoulder. Especially if he immediately went back to his dot, which he did. “Relax,” he murmured, and offered a small, crinkled smile in amusement.

Wes blushed deeper and fidgeted more, but it was of a less anxious kind, so Jaemin considered it a win. Risi was looking at them with interest, but not concern. “All of my reeds are broken,” Wes finally wheezed, and Jaemin almost laughed. Leave it to a first year to think breaking a reed was the end of the world, even if they did do it twice as often as literally anyone else.

Jaemin reached into his pocket to bring out a fresh one. If there was anything his parents funded, it was his music career, which he was grateful for but equally nervous about. Someday, they’d disown him for never picking up his saxophone ever again after high school. But by this time, he was surprised Wes didn’t know he carried new reeds on him.

Wes went white, then red again, and rushed out a ‘thank you’ as he received the reed, tearing open the package and sliding it out of the plastic casing. Like a seasoned warrior, he placed the cut part right on his tongue and didn’t even make a face at the new taste.

“Thank you, Jaemin,” Risi said, equally as amused by Wes’s panicked display, then almost immediately snapped to attention with their drum major’s cracked cry from the podium. A snigger rippled through the band at Kyla, whose voice rarely cracked except when she was sick (she was).

The “shut up” was implicit in her impassiveness as she ran them back five moves and started up the count again.

They repeated the chunk some two times before Ms. M was satisfied and then finally it was time for a run-through. It always started at zero yards, and Jaemin could see Jeno at the very end where the guard was. Jaemin drew in a breath, then let it out.

Despite the peculiar hell band was and always would be, Jaemin could not help but get an anticipatory rush before every run-through, every show. It was one thing to succeed on his own—it was another thing to succeed with his peers joined around him, creating some mad music as they scissored across the field in some defiant order. It was also another thing, Jaemin was discovering, to be in the same creative company as the two boys he liked.

That, too, made his skin itch a little, but not in a bad way.

* * *

They were given just under a minute to break and drink water before another run-through, and Jaemin did not expect Donghyuck to hand his bottle over.

“Thank you,” he said, and tried not to sound surprised.

Donghyuck smiled in this small, just-the-corners-of-his-mouth way, then said, “Renjun didn’t tell me Jeno was assistant drum major. It must be fun to see him during the ballad.”

Jaemin’s brain blanked. He didn’t even get his water bottle to his lips. “What?”

Donghyuck’s expression snagged, confused. “I thought it was him.”

Jaemin turned, immediately trying to find Jeno with his eyes, but he was already at the goal line exchanging words with another guard member. Jaemin’s mind whirred absurdly, uselessly. “I—”

_“Set!”_

Jaemin dropped his bottle back on the turf, already moving to get to his place even as his thoughts still stumbled around on the sideline.

Was Jeno assistant fucking drum major?

If he was, how on earth had Jaemin never noticed?

Was he so self-absorbed he’d missed it entirely?

Risi shot him a look of concern, though Jaemin had no idea what on his face, exactly, was giving away his horror. It was one thing to not know Jeno’s name a week and a half ago—it was another thing to not know that he was the assistant drum major. They only had two of those. The drum major and her assistants. There was one at the front of the field with Kyla around the 30-yard line. Her name was Ananya and she was a fourth year as well. She’d used to play trombone.

He’d always known there was a third that took over during the ballads. The band faced backfield for several bars, and Jaemin wasn’t a heathen—he watched the drum major like everyone should—so how the fuck did he not realize they were Jeno?

Jaemin heard the count off, was distantly aware of himself marching onto the field, but definitely didn’t pay attention to anything. He knew his show, and it was only a practice, so he wasn’t fussed about making it his best performance. He just wanted to get to the ballad and then…

He didn’t know.

Either die from stress and alarm or die from relief.

Sans the death, the result was the former.

* * *

“Did you know someone in the color guard is assistant drum major?” Jaemin asked, though it perhaps communicated a certain urgency he hadn’t fully intended, since Risi raised her eyebrows at him. She ran a cloth through her saxophone while he struggled to unknot his own cloth. They were all in a hurry to put their instruments away, but Jaemin couldn’t feasibly wait an entire period to ask Risi this question.

“I never payed attention. I thought it was Ana.”

“It’s _not_. Ana’s not blond.”

Risi pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows higher. “You seem stressed about this. Should I also be stressed?”

“Why did neither you nor I know the third drum major is color guard?” He almost pinched the pad of his index finger in the silver clasp of his case in what was likely an embarrassing display of duress.

“I mean,” Risi said, seemingly invested in her underclassman’s anxiety now, “it makes sense. We don’t share a period with guard. We’d only see him? Her? Them?”

“Him.”

“Him, then, in the mornings.”

“Or for _shows_.”

“Or,” Risi said delicately, “for shows. Do you not like him?”

Jaemin shoved his case securely into his cabinet, offended. “I like everyone.”

Risi looked at a loss, or amused, or alarmed. “I’ve never seen you like this. Do we need to talk?”

“No. I’m just losing my mind,” Jaemin said, hissing almost in the discomfort of this horrible blindspot and moral failing on his part. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and left her in the locker room for her to marvel over his tantrum.

He pressed his ring finger to the seam in his bottom lip where it had, in fact split. Slinging on his backpack, he sucked the injury into his mouth to nurse it and tried to revisit the memory he’d attempted to burn into his irises.

There wasn’t time or space to observe the color guard participate in their craft—they were often on the fringe, and if they were interwoven, it was never Jeno in Jaemin’s proximity. The band did most of their practices and run-throughs divided through the middle. Pit, guard, and drumline practiced with each other while the winds played and marched with themselves. It created a rift between their social worlds as well as their affinity, and Ms. M was notoriously blind to the color guard. Whatever they did was none of her business. It didn’t help, either, that the guard’s choreography would continue to change throughout the year, so Ms. M undoubtably felt like her grip on their whims was nonexistent. 

It was only on these special mornings, Wednesday nights, and then Super Saturdays that they practiced with everyone together, and even with the latter two, it wasn’t guaranteed.

So the system was against Jaemin for noticing Jeno like this. When they practiced the ballad on most days, Ananya usually moved to the back of the field to guide them.

Still, it stung that where it seemed Jeno had been so attentive to him, Jaemin was finding himself endlessly unobservant.

He could see Jeno’s straight back and organized stance, hands steady, movements smooth. He had looked both small and larger than life up there on the back podium. Sunset red tee, black jeans, nearly white-blond hair. Despite the cards in his favor, Jaemin couldn’t fathom how he had missed him.

* * *

Eventually, Jaemin recognized his emotions for the nervous breakdown they were, but it took approximately all of the periods leading up to lunch for him to do so.

That didn’t exactly mean he was entirely composed by the time he hunted down the lunch table he shared with Renjun, but at least he was self-aware, now.

In a perfect one-eighty, what had been a clear, cold sky was now a cloud-clotted, muggy landscape. For once, Jaemin was happy to wear a t-shirt, even though he’d had to paint concealer over some bruises his skin still couldn’t shake. The skin at the back of his neck was still tender, but Yukhei had eventually snagged him a bandage that hugged his skin almost transparently, and the tiny abrasions had healed like a dream. It was mostly pink back there whenever Jaemin checked.

He got to their table first and probably for the first time, didn’t even bother to pull out his math notes. Instead, he tried to collect himself into something that wasn’t a jumble of emotions and self-doubt. He liked Renjun, Renjun liked him, and the circle continued all the way around to and through Jeno. They’d be able to figure out what on earth they were doing soon. They’d be able to actually sit down with each other again soon—the three of them and figure out…why the hell they like each other. 

Why did they like him, anyway? 

What was there to like?

“You’re looking twitchy.”

“Hyuck, no.”

Like a flinch, Jaemin plastered a smile on his face and wrenched himself back out of his spiral just as Renjun slid into the bench across him. Not next to him. He’d be sitting next to Donghyuck. Obviously.

Renjun had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, which might have looked handsome on a ton of other people but just looked so cute Jaemin’s heart squeaked. He only had a moment to process before Renjun was sliding a paper lunch sack over to him without a word.

Jaemin felt himself freeze as Donghyuck pulled out an identical lunch from his own bag he’d been carrying. Donghyuck didn’t spare him a glance, but Jaemin’s heart was beating so hard in his head, it was hard to tell for sure anyway.

He reached only so far as to fiddle with the folded top and feel the paper under his fingertips.

Renjun knowing was mortifying, but this was worse.

Donghyuck finally glanced up, the snap of his tupperware filling the silence as Renjun ducked for his backpack in search of chopsticks.

Jaemin felt paralyzed.

“Renjun and I made the jiaozi together,” Donghyuck said, and it clashed with the white noise growing louder in Jaemin’s head. “He said he shares food with you sometimes and you might want to try.”

The wave building in Jaemin’s skull crashed, and his fingers trembled with his exhale. “Oh.”

Renjun had looked up and over at Donghyuck with just a single moment—Jaemin couldn’t parse its meaning. He was on the rocks, breathing again if only slightly. “Oh,” Jaemin said again. “Thank…thank you. I’m excited.”

He accepted the pair of chopsticks Renjun offered, steel instead of disposable this time. “They’re just pork and chive,” Renjun said, smiling, and Jaemin tried to smile back in time not to hint a badly dodged panic attack. “The little tupperware’s dipping sauce.”

“Thank you,” Jaemin murmured again, and finally opened the bag he’d been given.

The second time Renjun brought him one, he’d considered just starting to buy his own lunches again, but he hadn’t gotten a side job in so long. Once upon a time, he’d thought about asking Yukhei or Mark if they could bring him lunches, but he hadn’t acted on it for nearly the same reasons he struggled with Renjun doing it. Mark and Yukhei truly _knowing_ was the only difference.

He breathed out as silently as he could and snapped open the tupperware, focusing his energies on appraising their work instead. “They look very cute,” Jaemin said, observing their messy pinches while picking one up and opening the little circular case for the sauce.

Donghyuck gave a satisfied little “hmph” that would have made Jaemin smile if his heart were calmer.

“They’re not fresh,” Renjun admitted. “They’re from last night. Too much—”

Jaemin bit into one and knew immediately what there was too much of. He choked on a laugh, raising a hand to hover over his mouth, and said, “Ginger.”

Renjun’s smile came over his features slowly, and Jaemin wished he knew him well enough to figure out what was being communicated within it. “It’s good, though. I like ginger,” he said, and Donghyuck snorted. 

“Oh good. I’m third-wheeling,” he said, and Jaemin wasn’t sure what he’d done to trigger that reaction. He wasn’t trying to—

“Shut up,” Renjun said, just short of snide. “I’m literally sitting next to you instead of him.”

“You both did a good job,” Jaemin said, trying to help, and watched as Donghyuck put his elbows on the table and leaned his body toward him.

“Please compliment my dumplings while making deep eye-contact with me,” Donghyuck requested, voice dripping with honey that nearly made Jaemin’s jaw drop. He didn’t let himself do that, though. He held in the feeling of embarrassment and let it spark, setting his own elbows on the table as well and cupping his cheeks to make sure his skin was cool. He wouldn’t be blushing. Not like this.

Jaemin leaned in, batted his eyelashes, and said, “Your dumplings are delicious, Hyuckie.” 

Donghyuck’s eyes glinted with the artificial charge of the moment, but before he could open his mouth, Renjun outright gagged, eyes rolling in disgust. He jabbed Donghyuck in the side so sharply Donghyuck squealed and folded over the table. He groaned at the assault, but started to laugh as he righted his chopsticks in his fingers and went for another dumpling.

“What a gem,” Donghyuck murmured before stuffing the whole thing in his mouth, and Renjun sighed, passing a hand over his face as if to recompose himself.

Jaemin inadvertently found himself relax, then let himself stifle a smile as he dug into the rest of the jiaozi.

* * *

It wasn’t until five minutes up to the bell that Jaemin remembered Jeno, and he stopped mid-question about Michigan.

“Wait,” he said, and Donghyuck and Renjun stilled appropriately.

“What?” Donghyuck said.

Jaemin sucked in a breath, then pressed his palm to his mouth, trying to figure out how not to blurt anything unintentional within his bewilderment. He dropped his hand. “Renjun, did you know Jeno was assistant drum major?”

For a moment, it looked like Renjun wasn’t processing the question, and then he went beyond being “still.” He locked up, eyes slightly wider, and in the silence, Donghyuck exhaled.

“Dude, are you two blind?” Donghyuck asked, not sounding judgmental, but simply awed.

_“What?”_ Renjun said, and his voice was so sharp Jaemin nearly startled. “He’s fucking _what?”_

“No,” Donghyuck said, “he’s not fucking anyone. He’s just the—”

Donghyuck didn’t finish. Instead, Renjun deflated like someone had popped him with something extremely sharp, whining out his nose and sinking his head between his palms. He stared at the tabletop. Jaemin watched in fascination. Donghyuck looked like he’d seen this particular display before.

“Are you serious?” Renjun asked, eyes flicking up to Jaemin for confirmation, and all Jaemin could do was hopelessly shrug.

“He conducts the ballad,” Jaemin said simply. “Donghyuck was the one who pointed him out to me.”

“What the fuck?” Renjun said. “What the fuck is going on? We share a period—we practice all the time! What the fuck?”

Somehow, Jaemin felt a lot less bad seeing Renjun’s breakdown.

Donghyuck came to his rescue. “Haven’t you told me you listen to the drumline more than watch the drum major?” he asked helpfully. “Like they’re supposed to set the tempo and you just follow them?”

_“Yes,” _Renjun whined, and Jaemin wanted to laugh, but he was still just as confused himself.

“So, like, you’ve never noticed?” Jaemin asked, searching for clarification.

Renjun sucked in a breath, and Jaemin could practically hear his brain going into overdrive. “Okay, so,” he said and let all his air out at once. “Guard does their own thing a lot of the time, and we’ve never practiced with a drum major during our period. Ever. Only when we practice with you guys. And like. Guard is _with _us, but I’m sure there are tons of things he could practice outside of conducting, and we really _don’t_ rely on the conductor so we probably wouldn’t utilize him anyway, though hypothetically we probably should?”

Jaemin stared at him, glanced at his pursed lips, then suggested, “Breathe.”

Renjun exhaled. “I feel so fucking bad what the fuck.”

Finally, Jaemin laughed. “See, I feel _better.” _Renjun shot him a look and Jaemin laughed again. “I had the biggest breakdown this morning.”

For Donghyuck’s credit, he looked almost guilty. “He wasn’t hiding it from you two, was he?” he asked carefully, and Jaemin shook his head on impulse.

“It’s never come up, and like, realistically he probably suspects we already knew and just never talked about it,” Jaemin said. “That’s my assumption.”

“Oh,” Renjun said, “that makes me feel so much worse. Do we tell him?”

“No?” Donghyuck suggested.

“Will it make you feel better?” Jaemin asked instead.

“Do _you_ have any secrets?” Renjun asked, sudden, out-of-nowhere, and Jaemin felt his heart stop. Renjun’s face fell as soon as the words were out, and his hand dropped to the tabletop, fingers curling in the criss-cross pattern of the metal. “Like, are you—are you section leader or something? Junior representative? I just mean—”

He was interrupted by the lunch bell. Jaemin was still shaken.

“I didn’t mean—Jaemin, hold on,” Renjun said, and Jaemin could see he was scrambling. He could see that he _knew_ Jaemin had secrets he was afraid to tell. Or else he wouldn’t be reacting like this. It wasn’t like Jaemin expected Renjun to be stupid, but he was clinging to a hope he’d never have to say anything about it.

“No,” Jaemin said, feeling distant from himself as the doors around campus exploded with students. “I do.”

For the second time, Renjun locked up and didn’t move. Donghyuck was leaning very slightly away, as if he could give him space on the small bench.

Quietly, Jaemin closed up Renjun’s tupperware and slid it back into the paper bag, trying to calm his heart. Students parted around him on their way to art, drama, choir, robotics. Talking about exams, haircuts, cute classmates. 

He passed the bag back to Renjun, looked up, and did his best to smile. “I’ll tell you sometime.” Jaemin was sure he would. He’d have to tell both of them if this was going to work, and somehow a week and a half in, he wanted this to work so badly it was very nearly all he could think about. It was frightening, but he could do it.

“Okay,” Renjun said, and it was quiet among the other students milling about.

Jaemin smiled at both him and Donghyuck. “See you after school?”

Renjun shook himself, and his expression was so fierce it was adorable. “Absolutely.”

Jaemin relaxed.

He could do it.

He’d done it before, and he would do it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you in a few days. Buckle up.
> 
> (if any of you want to leave predictions before learning Jeno's story, this is the chapter to do it. I'd love to hear what you're expecting ♡)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	16. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE note these chapters (Jeno's) are heavy. Take care.
> 
> tw: mentions of loss/death, panic attack  
cw: alcohol, mild homophobia

The diving rock by the pool was still there with its granite shimmers and grey, though he no longer sat there if he could help it. The tiles around the edge of the pool were stained that chlorine white, begging to be scrubbed, the water only a mild, chemical playground for ducks.

Every once in a while, Jisung would be over, and Jeno would wade into it all to join him. He tried his best to think of the water as embracing him rather than swallowing him whole. The last bits of her rather than the cradle for her last breaths.

She once used to lie on the pool floats and soak up the sun, letting red figures dance under her eyelids as she hummed or sang or fell asleep. When she would slip into the water, she would do so willingly, and he would feel pulled like the wind was at his back to join her.

One night, he turned on the underwater lights. They wallowed their beams into the blue and Jeno sat on the cold ground to watch the surface waver like silk.

He pressed his lips to his knees and listened to the silence.

He would have given many things to hear her sing again.

  
  
  


His dad got drunk on weekends. Not always, but if he got drunk, he did so then. He’d swallow a bottle of wine and hold his forehead against the marble countertops and weep. 

Jeno learned how to cook for the weekends alone so his dad didn’t have to, and because his dad would stay in the kitchen, Jeno would hear his tears spill from the top of his head to his knees in cold swathes of ice water.

  
  
  


He nudged the stir fry around, hip bones pressed to the edge of the counter as the bottom of his dad’s wine bottle swirled in circles against the marble. When he got close to asking his dad to be careful, to not drink too much, everything got caught in his throat all at once. It was hard enough to swallow.

“I’m sorry,” his dad mumbled, and Jeno felt the words hit somewhere between his shoulder blades like a pillow enfolding a rock.

He’d said “It’s okay, dad.” so many times it sounded faded with overuse, even to him, so he said nothing at all. Instead, he turned off the stove and made his way to the cabinets that held their plates. He only glanced at his father once, trying to work up the courage as usual to sit beside him and accept the tears. The delft blue of the dishes was buried as he served dinner out, trying to be neat with the one ladle he hadn’t banished to the dishwasher yet.

“I’m—”

“Just a second, dad. I’m almost done,” he said, just short of letting the plea bleed into his voice. He felt demanding. Kind of like a person made of paper. Something he’d colored in and sketched for himself so he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Which wasn’t fair. He liked, looked like, loved his dad, but it was still a struggle. If the idea didn’t make him gag, he would have liked to fill a bathtub with his father’s wine to drown himself in it.

“Sorry,” his dad said, voice so watery it slipped through the grip Jeno had on his own emotions. Jeno’s breath hitched and he placed a plate for him before lifting himself onto the other bar stool.

His dad’s hand was large at the nape of his neck, warm but a little clammy. Still, Jeno leaned into the touch and rested his head on the shoulder his father offered him. He could almost feel the tremor in his father’s fingertips.

He didn’t want to eat.

He picked up his fork anyway.

  
  
  


Jeno didn’t sleep in his own room anymore or else he didn’t sleep at all. He slipped into the bed both he and his dad considered his mother’s now and pressed his face into the laundered sheets that smelled like lavender. His father would follow, for it was once his bed too, and he’d crawl his limbs across the space between them to draw Jeno in close and tuck him under his chin.

He smelled like alcohol, which now just smelled like tears.

The thrum of his dad’s heartbeat would put him to sleep.

  
  
  


He practiced for everything, but mostly for drum major. He doubted the people he wanted to notice had done so yet, but he was the one who dropped everything to conduct the band as they turned backfield. As the brass dimmed and woodwinds rose, he would strain his arms further until they ached.

Maybe they had noticed. Maybe he was terrible.

He had a hard time not worrying about it.

  
  
  


“God, you’re better than I am,” Kyla told him as she taped up her mace. “Or you will be. Ms. M just doesn’t like that you’re guard.”

Lots of people didn’t like that he was guard.

He remembered his aunt calling him “a little gay, don’t you think?” for it, and he didn’t think so, but he was bisexual, which was pretty close.

But self-expression didn’t make a person gay. It just made them less toxic. He preferred to pull his muscles to shreds than flush his liver with wine. It was a different kind of game.

  
  
  


Most people agreed it was an accident.

She had all the physical trauma to suggest it.

It didn’t change anything.

Not really.

  
  
  


Back in sixth grade, Jaemin handed out valentines to a class that wasn’t his.

Jeno received a white cutout heart with a badly-drawn bear on it.

He told his mother about it, and she laminated it if only because it was the first valentine he’d received since moving. His first Valentine’s Day in California.

“His name is Jaemin,” he told his mother.

_ “It’s a pretty name,” _she replied in Korean. She kissed his nose.

  
  
  


Renjun, on the other hand, was just very angry sometimes and threw a shoe at one of Jeno’s fellow guard members their first year of high school.

To be fair, she’d called one of the pit members a slur within earshot.

Jeno laughed when the shoe connected, which earned him a punch in the arm. He was distracted, though, by how Renjun stumbled to jerk his shoe back on and the way it looked like he was about to gnaw on his section mate’s bare bones.

He was difficult to dislike.

  
  
  


“You should introduce yourself,” Chenle told him, and Jeno just shook his head. “They’re just boys,” Chenle said, like they, too, weren't ‘just boys’ with the exact number of brain cells Renjun and Jaemin had. He couldn’t know their language any more than he knew his own.

“You’re weird and friendly,” Chenle said, “so like…how likely is it that they’d shun you?”

“Pretty likely,” Jeno said with the knowledge that Renjun was a force and Jaemin had a smile that shined his saxophone singlehandedly. “Everyone’s weird and friendly.”

“Yeah,” Chenle admitted, “but you’re like, super weird. And not everyone’s friendly.”

Renjun was sometimes friendly. Jaemin was so friendly it oozed off him like melted jello.

“Okay.”

  
  
  


Second year didn’t exist.

It had at some point, but Jeno couldn’t remember most of it.

  
  
  


Pink water.

A very large hole.

An upperclassman walking out.

Learning to bruise his wrists and arms and hands since holding on hurt anyway.

The freshest, deepest tears tasting like iron.

  
  
  


The day he came to school having failed to cover the welts that were his eyes for all the tears he’d battled out—the day both Renjun and Jaemin noticed and were a little kinder (they were always kind anyway, and he didn’t know what to do with himself when they were so gentle)—he’d spent the entire previous night ripping himself apart in the kitchen:

> “Please stop drinking,” he said. “I know it hurts. I know. Please stop.”
> 
> His dad sat at the kitchen island, hand frozen around the neck of a fresh bottle, watching as his son cracked apart.
> 
> “I’m worried about you and. You’re all. I have. Please stop drinking. Please be with me.” His hands shook while he palmed away tears spilling over in pathetic drops. They streamed hot down his cheeks, some dripping between his fingers before he could catch them. “I want you here with me. Please.”
> 
> He dissolved into stinging saltwater, back pressed against the cabinets, fingers pressed to the overflow of emotion he didn’t know how to stop. He tried not to cry too often—simply managed not to usually. It made him sick. It gave him headaches. And worst of all, he didn’t know how to stop.
> 
> “Jeno—” he heard in a croak from his dad. It sounded like pain in no other way a voice could emulate.
> 
> Jeno understood the wine. He had his own game. But at least he was lucid. At least he had control. At least this damage could heal. He wasn’t sure what this was doing to his dad’s liver, but he knew it was draining his weekends away until he couldn’t even remember what it was like to have a whole day of his dad sober.
> 
> “I love you,” Jeno wept. “Please don’t leave me.” And he didn’t mean to say that, but it spilled out anyway with the tears. His dad was crying, too, cold tears that always sat in his eyes. 
> 
> The both of them fell apart on opposite sides of the kitchen as the curry simmered on the stovetop.
> 
> When his dad finally moved to turn off the heat, he collected Jeno in his arms like he was gently scooping up a bawling pillbug. He cradled him, crying just as badly, whispering creaky promises into his son’s bleached hair. “I’m sorry, Jen. I’m sorry, sweet boy. I’ll try. You may have to remind me, but I’ll do anything for you. I swear I will.”

  
  
  


He’d made friends first year, and he still saw them from time to time, but they no longer said hello. Jeno didn’t remember if he had insulted them at some point, or how he lost them, but he knew he didn’t recall them being there that year.

It wasn’t something he held against them—especially since he might have been a bad person.

He really didn’t remember.

He remembered taking Yeeun to her last dance, though, after she asked him. Her ex had been harassing her to go, and she was the only friend he’d made that year amidst the fog and nothingness. She asked him to senior prom, he went, and she hadn’t made a single move on him because she knew he wasn’t interested. She wasn’t either.

If it had gone differently they would no longer be talking.

As it was, she still messaged him, and she knew about everything. From his helpless crushes to the silent nightmares he had to withstand when the anniversary slipped too close. It was easier to tell someone who was gone, and it was easier to speak with someone who had lost as much as he did.

Personally, he struggled to parse which was worse:

A mother who willingly walked out on her children.

Or a mother who was dead.

  
  
  


The grades on his transcript were a testament to what happened, he figured. He passed, but just barely, and he couldn’t even begrudge the one class he had to make up. No one could have made him go to school on some days, and his dad never forced him.

On days he had gone, he remembered, very loosely, putting his head in his arms and dealing with the caged pain he had to stifle now that there were people judging him for it.

“Jeno,” he remembered.

He did not lift his head.

“We’re on page ninety-three. I need you to turn to that page now. Thank you.”

Some time later, he could feel the artificial breeze of his book being flipped open for him by the weathered hands of his teacher. “Please follow along.”

Later, “What do you need to be doing right now?” to which he answered by keeping his head down just so he could breathe.

Right after the bell rang, “I know you’re still grieving, but you need to participate in class.”

“No,” he said. Not petulant, but certainly sure. “I don’t.”

There were worse things in life than not reading _ Of Mice and Men_, which talked about misery anyway.

  
  
  


_ “I really love having your son in our class,” _ the voicemail speaker said. _ “He’s very pleasant and works hard, and I miss having him participate in our class activities. The faculty is worried about him, though, because if this continues, he may have to repeat this grade. It’s not dire—he’d be able to turn things around if he is able, so I hope he considers it. You have my sincere condolences to your family. Please reach out if you need anything or if I can help in any way.” _

His dad studied the granite countertops, looking haggard and unloved like a toy tossed under the bed and forgotten. Jeno did not feel guilty. He felt pain. They were fundamentally different.

“You don’t want to repeat a grade,” his dad said, “probably. I don’t have a problem with it if that’s what you need.” He breathed in and crossed the flimsy barrier between them that was so pathetically lifted just for a semblance of okayness. The warmth of his dad’s hand seeped through the skin of his wrist. “I think you can do it, though, and then you won’t have to.”

Jeno ignored his pasta and curled into his dad just to feel his heartbeat.

  
  


As said, he barely passed, and he learned the new meaning of bare-minimum.

It was what you did when you had nothing more to give.

  
  
  


There was a two-week period in sixth grade where Jaemin was gone. Rumors shuffled around the kids like scratched up plastic gems even in classes totally separate from Jaemin’s. He was well-known throughout the sixth grade. He was nice and smiled a lot, so he was considered popular.

Despite how everyone liked him, they didn’t hesitate to unleash some real mean thoughts.

“His dad’s a criminal and they had to move so he wouldn’t get caught.”

“His parents pulled him out because he’s too dumb at math.”

“A car ran over his legs and he had to get surgery. He might never walk again.”

They were all awful, though Jeno rather thought that it was a nicer thought to believe Jaemin went to go visit family. If Jeno was ever going to be absent that long from school, he hoped it was to visit extended family in Korea or to visit his cousins in New Jersey. It was really pretty in New Jersey, and he liked the street food in Korea.

Jaemin came back, though, and he was quieter after that—though no less kind. He just smiled less for a time, and Jeno would know because at that age, he hadn’t known it was impolite to watch others without them knowing for so long. There was something funny in the way Jaemin avoided his friends, Jeno thought, though he couldn’t figure out what was making him that way.

  
  
  


He learned just how much his mother’s side of the family hated his dad after she died. He was mostly blind to it growing up—he hardly knew how to interpret the barbs his grandparents and aunt had worn when he was younger. They used to see more of those people back then, presumably to Jeno because his parents were making an effort to maintain a slipping connection.

His mom’s side was more traditional, which didn’t bode well with his dad supporting his mom’s dreams as much as he had.

They’d met in their first year of college while her parents were trying to strong-arm her into ditching competitive swim. Even though his dad had been a philosophy major with his eyes on law, he’d fallen in love with her at the poolside.

“Anatomy,” his dad said to him later. “Swimmers are good for anatomy practice.” But Jeno had never inherited his father’s gift for art, so he lived vicariously through their little love story where his dad had been sketching the boys, then had shyly asked his mother’s permission to draw her as well.

She’d said yes, then had aggressively flirted with him for an hour while treading water. His dad had never even got a chance to put his pen to paper. Instead, she had done it for him to jot down her number.

He would call her his mermaid, siren, intimidating and beautiful, and she would call him a romantic. Jeno thought he probably inherited _ that _trait.

They blamed his dad at the end of the day—her family—for her continued pursuits in competitive swim.

The connection to blaming him for her death was a pretty straight shot from there.

  
  
  


When they moved to California, despite being hours from the ocean, they visited the beach before they had even properly unpacked.

His mother, whose grandmother had lived near the ocean and had reeled her granddaughter into the hush-hush of water, popped out of the car as soon as it was parked and ran. Her shoes were discarded, her hair tie removed, her shirt tangled around her forearm and wrist as she wrestled it off and slid into the sand.

His father laughed, and Jeno, always drawn to the things his mother loved but never quite so impulsive, toed his way into the gentle dunes with curiosity and care. Jeno had never felt sand between his toes, and it was uncomfortable, but also warm.

_ “Adeul,” _ his mother called, and reached for him with the sunlight skidding against her skin and her smile brighter than the sky, _ “the sand won’t bite.” _

Jeno crinkled his nose, but traversed further and sank to his knees to collect the touch of his mother’s fingers, feel them card gently through his hair. Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight, their brown looking like brass as the day struck through them. His father dawdled behind to unpack some things, smiling so deeply it carved secret dimples in his cheeks and lit up his slim eyes.

_ “Lie with me. I want to show you something.” _

Jeno didn’t hesitate—never did, really, when it came to his mom—and moved down next to her with his belly down. Just like her.

_ “Press your cheek to the sand and close your eyes,” _ she said, holding his hand. He watched her own eyes close before he followed suit and nestled his face to its side against the sand. It was warm and soft somehow even in its graininess.

_ “Listen,” _ she said.

_ “To what?” _he whispered to her, tempted to open his eyes but too obedient to ever truly want to.

_ “The ocean. Her breath is the most peaceful thing on Earth.” _

Jeno listened, and he never forgot.

This was the memory he would return to if he could. Listening to his mother’s breath mixed with that of the ocean, his hand clasped in hers, warm and safe. Her breath—his mother’s, not the ocean’s—was, to him, the most peaceful thing on Earth.

  
  
  


Jeno was always drawn to the things his mother loved.

Swimming was a natural collateral, and she hardly had to teach him how.

“You have energy and power,” she said loud and proud in her accented English, and it made Jeno feel bigger than he actually was to hear it.

“Yeah?” he said, twelve and scrabbling his wet fingers over the lip of the pool. He stared up, up into her deep brown eyes. She took one of his hands and kissed his chlorinated palm.

_ She _ had energy and power. She was strong—stronger than his dad and more energetic than his dad. They called him their son, because he had his father’s temperament and his mother’s gifts. He was definitely their son, of course. Biologically, their genes came together and created him, but somehow, it felt good to hear it spoken aloud.

_ “Yes.” _ she hummed, strong and soft all at once, _ “You are my son.” _

  
  
  


He failed many times, but somehow his parents were never disappointed. He got sick to his stomach his first competition, and swam like a dead chicken, and his mother said she’d never learned more than when she failed.

_ “I hope you fail many times,” _ she said, holding him tightly as he tried to fend off shame and disappointment. _ “You will grow to be the best because you know how to fail, and work harder, and be humble. I love you.” _

_ “I love you,” _he echoed back.

  
  
  


He did not fail the next competition, or the next, but it felt better in light of how badly he’d done the first time. He remembered his mom dancing to trot with him the evening of his second medal to celebrate his victory, which was torture on some levels and his favorite thing ever on every other.

She twirled him because she was still taller than him, singing badly on purpose right in his ear, and it made him giggle until he got dizzy and fell into her hug.

He missed her.

  
  
  


If anyone asked what he wanted to do with his future, he said “swim.” He couldn’t imagine anything else. To him, the water felt like liquid light around his body, like his mom’s hand on his belly when she first taught him how to float.

It was hardly a question.

“Swim,” he told Chenle when he asked the first time, and shot him in the stomach with a spray of pool water.

“You’re so boring,” Chenle had complained, trying to nail him in the head even though headshots were supposed to be off-limits. “Can’t you want to be a fireman or something? That uses water.”

“I want to be like my mom,” Jeno said. He didn’t really care if swimming was boring. He liked it.

“You want to be like a girl?” Chenle had said because he was young and still an idiot. He would be embarrassed to have this memory passed back to him later.

“Yes,” Jeno said because the question annoyed him but he wasn’t sure how to be wittier. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked, not really caring about the answer, and managed to hit Chenle in the head with a stream before Chenle could come up with one.

  
  
  


He took band in high school because he was stubborn, mostly, and was determined to learn how to dance and continue swimming at the same time. He was drawn to the flags and the liquid movements of the guard for reasons that were wholly his own, which was a new thing for him.

His parents didn’t stop him—they weren’t of the opinion that they needed to, even though dance was apparently as scandalous an interest for a boy as swimming was for a girl on his mother’s side of the family.

Swamped, though, was the word someone could most aptly use for his first year of high school. Not that he minded. He was happiest when he was busy, even with swim coming out his nose and homework out his mouth and band out his ears.

Somehow, among it all, he found the time to stare at his mom while she did her makeup and compel her through attentive willpower alone to teach him how.

_ “I can’t tell if you want to eat my makeup or learn how to wear it,” _ she teased him when he sat down on the floor and stared at her. _ “Or are you upset with me?” _

_ “Will I be bullied if I wear makeup?” _he asked.

_ “Are you just copying me again?” _ she retorted, gently, boldly, still teasing. _ “You might be. People will assume things about you.” _

_ “Like what?” _

His mother pursed her lips and made a tilting motion with the hand she wasn’t using to put mascara on. _ “They’ll think you like boys.” _

_ “I do like boys,” _ Jeno said, nettled by how it sounded like a bad thing. He understood what she was getting at, and homophobia wasn’t beyond him, but it upset him nonetheless.

_ “I know you do,” _ his mother said, almost a little rushed to reassure him, _ “and that’s amazing. You have so much love to give, Jeno-yah.” _She set down her mascara and put her hands on her hips, shoulders broad and looking truly proud. 

Jeno exhaled under the feeling, reaching on instinct for one of his mother’s hands. She gave it to him.

_ “I’ll teach you how to do your makeup, and then you won’t need anyone’s help for your band shows, will you?” _She smiled like she was daring anyone to challenge her son’s aspirations.

Jeno _ missed _ her.

  
  
  


It fell apart at the funeral. Jeno’s hands were cold. His dad had been impolitely disallowed from speaking during the service. Instead, it was her side of the family. No one on his dad’s side even bothered to show up.

His grandparents talked about how much potential she had, how much grace and brilliance. They spoke on loss like it had happened much, much earlier than it truly had.

Jeno’s hands were cold, and they shook, and when his aunt was so bold to sob and say that she hoped his mother was happier in heaven, he saw red.

His aunt tried to speak to him after the service, after the burial, after it all even though his mother had wanted a Korean funeral—contemporary, three days, no eulogy, cremation, silence—and it was all he could do not to bite her sullen cheek off to show the deluded lies beneath her tongue.

“My mother loved me,” he said instead, hands still so cold around the glass of water he’d been nursing to stave off his headache from the tears. She’d cornered him in the kitchen of their own home, which they’d opened to everyone despite being disallowed from speaking at the ceremony.

“Of course she did. We must love our children even when they have been misguided.” Her tongue looked unnatural behind her teeth and plum-red lips. Her makeup was unflattering and caucasian around her Korean eyes.

Jeno clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. With fire in his brain and grief in his belly, he said as clearly in Korean as possible, _ “I hope to see your ass in hell.” _ and left the room entirely.

  
  
  


He did not swim his second year. He stopped competing within the first two months. School started in August. His mother died in September.

He thought he could do it, and then he couldn’t.

He got up to his waist in water and started to suffocate.

Pink.

His mother’s body.

Pink.

He couldn’t breathe.

The water was pink, and he couldn’t breathe.

Never before had water been anything less than light, but here in his own backyard, it dragged like cement, slimy like drowned fingers, selfish like a swallowing glutton.

He screamed with whatever air he had left as his father dragged him out of the water. Jeno turned into his father’s chest and screamed, choking on his own hysteria and terror. He clawed on the skin of his father’s exposed hands as he held Jeno’s face between them, crying in matched terror, trying to soothe his son.

Jeno did not return to the water.

  
  
  


Her death was published in the paper and online, but his dad had long requested anonymity. No one knew she was a part of them unless they were close. Some neighbors knew. The public grieved to the shallow extent they were able. The thought rubbed Jeno’s skin raw. He hated it.

In the overwhelming grey, his father gifted him colors—ones his mother had never touched so those could be immortalized in their palettes. Both of them struggled to touch her things.

The first makeup set was simple and not very expensive, but not because they couldn’t afford it. His father was successful, and though he struggled personally and emotionally, he never dropped the ball on his work. In Jeno’s opinion, he never dropped the ball on his son, either. They were both suffering.

No, it was simple and cheap because Jeno wasn’t sure if he could manage embracing this part of his mother again, either. It turned out to be fine, though. He wasn’t at the mercy of an element, nor could he drown in makeup. It became her memory guiding his hand, and the moment he started wearing it to school again was the moment that marked his healing.

The whispers were familiar. Almost comforting, because they were nearly the same as when she had been alive.

“Gross,” said a peer, and slipped in a slur, and somehow, it helped Jeno breathe.

  
  
  


Among everything, the one thing he didn’t give up in his second year was color guard, and he loosely remembered them not giving up on him, either. The complicated pathways, choreographies, and multitasking was immense enough to occupy his mind and keep him from drifting.

The members weren’t quite sure what it was that had slipped with him emotionally, but as catty as they could be with each other, he was suddenly the ultimate medium for their loyalty. Serenity, the guard captain at the time, nudged him to specialize in saber.

“It’ll look sexy,” she said, and he vaguely recalled choking on some sort of laugh. None of them knew for sure that his mother had passed—there wasn’t a single person on campus who knew because Jeno had told them. If they knew, it was because they were a teacher or a neighbor or a gossiper. There was no other option unless their names were Chenle, Jisung, or Yeeun.

The guard suspected, of course, because gossip touched them and swirled between their hands like the flags they threw, but they were prone to infighting. Not listening to people outside their little circle.

In any case, they gave him space, but pushed him, took time to check in, take care of their only boy in the group. Lili, a fourth year, religiously complimented one thing about his person every single day for the entirety of the year she had left. Jaehee nearly punched a band member in the throat for calling him a slur in front of her. And Kyla, who participated in winter guard every year, suggested he train for drum major. She was set to be head her next year, so her thoughts were invaluable. “You have a really solid sense of rhythm,” she told him, “and I’ve seen you practice. You haven’t rushed or lagged your choreography even once.”

He took her word for it, and his dad, as usual and unfailingly, supported him.

  
  
  


Jisung arrived in his life at the tail end of his second year when the fog was just barely clearing. The boy had been Chenle’s best friend for a good year at least (as far as Jeno could tell), but Chenle did a remarkable job of making Jeno feel like he was the only person in the world when they hung out. Even a year less mature than him, Chenle was irrefutably one of the kindest people Jeno had ever known.

In his time of grieving, Chenle went out of his way to be present. To exist. To simply give Jeno an excuse to avoid being home alone until his dad returned.

“Jisung,” Chenle said delicately, “is going to try to get on the water polo team next year.” Due to Chenle’s late birthday, he would be entering his first year of high school when Jeno entered his third. He was in the same academic year as Jisung, which was convenient for their friendship.

“Oh,” Jeno said when he finally processed the implications. “I hope he gets in.”

Chenle looked at Jeno and kept looking, searching for something, and Jeno, who was just trying to breathe peacefully most days, let him. “Do you think you’ll ever swim again?” Chenle said, and Jeno anticipated it. The pain. It rattled in his throat like danger.

He sucked in a breath. “I don’t think I can.”

“Do you want to?”

Jeno rubbed his palms together and thought of the tattoo inked into his side. “I don’t know.”

  
  
  


Their house was too large for the two of them, but it held their mother. It would hurt more to leave than it did being reminded of her.

Wherever his dad was in the house, Jeno was. Wherever Jeno was, his dad was also. It was a coping mechanism for the sorrow, the quiet, the loneliness. In the mornings when Jeno perched himself on the stool in front of his mother’s makeup counter and took to his brushes, his father drew. In ways Jeno understood many others could not experience, his father was his best friend.

They talked sometimes while they both did their art, and sometimes they didn’t, and sometimes they played music, but they coexisted as they tried to remember what beauty was when it was gone.

There was one piece his father held onto. It was just a wave drawn on a birthday card his mother would never receive. As one of the school holidays loomed closer, he asked his dad if he could have it on his skin.

It was one of the rare requests that stunned his father, speechlessness scribbled into the lines of his face. “You mean a tattoo?”

Jeno nodded and set down the brush he’d been using for his eyelids. “The wave and maybe my name. Written in her handwriting. Underneath.”

He watched as his dad tilted his chin back and drew in a tight, overwhelmed breath. When he lowered his gaze from the ceiling back down again, his eyes were filmy, but not overflowing. “You’re sure? I won’t tell you no, but the state will. We’d have to get it somewhere else.”

Jeno nodded again. “Please.”

They both got a tattoo in Nevada that Christmas. His dad’s on his inner arm—her name as she had written it at age six, all colored pencil on the inside cover of her favorite novel—and Jeno’s on his waist where his parents’ passions met and formed him.

It grounded him in ways he’d hoped for and desperately needed. She felt closer, though he thought he’d still rather die to hold her hand again some days.

  
  
  


His life reformed in the summer. Jisung became a fixture, as he could easily manage to be there for Jeno and also take advantage of their professional-length pool all at once. Chenle seemed happiest with the three of them together, which was also nice.

“You should join him,” Chenle said one day. The sky burned blue and commanded they wear sunscreen. “Only if you think you can, but you should.”

Jeno wasn’t angry, but the suggestion made his heart raise a multitude of tiny, anxious red flags. He rubbed sunscreen into the tops of his feet in silence.

“I’ll hold your hand,” Chenle said. “If it goes wrong we’ll both pull you out.”

Jeno let out a shaky exhale and closed his eyes, watching copper imprints dance and shudder at the back of his eyelids. “Hold tight?” Jeno said.

Chenle gave a tight smile. “Of course.”

It was Jisung who reminded Jeno to breathe as he waded down the built-in steps of the pool. Baby Jisung, who looked like a little winter bird most days. As Jeno’s breath crashed into him, flooded high and fast, Jisung reached to touch a broad hand to his chest and told him to breathe.

“We’re right here.”

“It’s not—it’s. I can’t. I can’t.” Jeno swallowed down air in hiccup-y gasps, the water swelling and swarming, bubbly and tinting a color that made him sick. “Chenle, I can’t. I can’t do it.”

“You’re not going any deeper than this,” Chenle said, firm. There was the tiniest undertone of fear in his voice like he was resisting the urge to yank Jeno out and cuddle away the panic. “It’s just to your knees. We won’t go any deeper.”

“Breathe, hyung,” Jisung said, thrumming his fingertips against Jeno’s bare sternum like a soft and rapid heartbeat. “In. In with me. In. Out. Breathe out, hyung.”

Jeno wobbled like a rod of bamboo without roots, but eventually latched onto Jisung’s demands. It was messy, but he breathed, and when thirty seconds passed, Chenle said, “We’re done. You’re done.” He led him out of the water and sat with him until the shivers and chills dissapated under the sun.


	17. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This entire chapter deals directly with death. If you have experienced loss, this chapter may be upsetting to you. I will post a brief summary at the ending notes.

Decades from the moment, he would still be able to remember every detail.

He’d still been recovering from a cough, any deep breath giving a little rattle in his upper chest. It was a nuisance most of all because it physically blocked him from both any serious swimming and a rewarding guard practice. Jeno was bad at letting illness stop him, though, for the most part. It wasn’t ideal for his recovery, but it _ was _ ideal for his happiness.

The new field show was demanding and bitter after the last show had foundered at finals. Jeno was only reasonably competitive—if it mattered to him, he did what he could to avoid the acerbic taste at the back of his tongue he knew so well.

In the dredges of sickness and sore on top of it all, he pushed through the front door and dropped his bag on the bottom step of the stairs. _ “Eomma, home!” _When she didn’t answer, he gave a pathetic cough and made his way to the kitchen to peek out toward the pool and maybe steal a tangerine.

He couldn’t see her in the water either from where he was, so he did indeed steal a tangerine out of the refrigerator. Unsure of whether she was upstairs or outside, he wandered to their second floor, careful not to drip any citrus on the carpet. “Mom?” He shouldered his parents’ bedroom open, but the bed was empty and so was the bathroom.

With a sigh, he trudged back down the stairs, the burn in his legs more present and unpleasant than usual. She could have been underwater when he had looked the first time—sometimes she just liked to sit at the bottom of the pool. It was quieter down there.

He discarded the peel and ate the rest of his theft before rinsing his hands and heading outside, looking for any traces of his mother before he might be forced to search the garage. He wasn’t the kind of boy who liked plodding straight up to his room and locking himself in there. He had to know where his people were, check in with them, and then he could be at peace. His mother called it one of his dog-isms. His dad and he were allergic to dander, though, so Jeno had to take her word for it.

The sun was bright even in September, the light clambering through the twisted California oaks as autumn neared. He kicked on his outdoor sandals and took in the dry edges of the pool—no towel, no puddles, no goggles—quirking his lips in disappointment. Still, he approached just to check.

There was a deceptive sense of relief, first, seeing her at the bottom. Her hair floated in a silken, motionless splay, skin washed out from the water surrounding her.

And then it was the color. The pink. The weird, tinted crimson nearest her head in the way she lay at the bottom, and the dark pink that rose from it as it diffused. The light cordoned her off in tendrils over her pale skin, waning dramatically as Jeno’s vision tilted and narrowed in a shallow hiccup of fear.

“Mom?”

He scrambled for the edge, not even thinking to shed anything except his logic and his shoes.

It was the last moment the water would feel like it used to. Like a friend against his skin and between his fingers.

He reached for her arm, lungs pulsing sickly like another heart in panic, and the red around her head disturbed in a waft of pink, her hair edging away and flowing back as her cold skin met his fingertips.

The water dragged as he pulled, tugging back, watching with him as his mother hung from his grip—colder than the water around them, colder than the ice in his chest. Crimson ribbons streamed from her hairline, and he fumbled to collect her limbs and hold her. The sun was white through the water overhead, the oak leaves reaching and wilting through the wobbly surface.

His lungs screamed. He hadn’t been ready.

The water _ dragged _ as he pulled, tugging back, and if tears could come forth in the drenched fear around him, they would have. It felt like he’d choke in the water before they reached air, but he broke, breathing only as much as he needed to in order to heave her to the edge, dripping, black hair weaving droplets of red through the water as he bodied her onto the pavement.

He hardly arranged her more than just leveling her torso on land, tilting her face to the side as he sucked in breath after breath verging on too much. Sickness made him cough and gag, and fear redoubled it. Water spilled from her mouth and his tears flowed then, her lips washed blue, scarlet slipping down her face to stain the ground. 

Jeno pinched her nose, so close to vomiting if not for the fact that he had to breathe. His fingers slipped around her chin as he tilted her head back and pried her mouth open. He sealed his lips to hers, her mouth stiff, and pushed breath into her like a prayer. Her chest rose like some pathetic answer, and he waited for it to fall, his fingertips searching under her neck for her pulse.

Nothing.

Cold.

Again, he sealed lips even as his vision went spotty around the edges in his panic, watched her chest rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall.

Nothing.

Cold.

He sobbed against her mouth, but scrambled up straight onto his knees, locking his fingers and pressing the heel of his palm to the middle of her chest even though he could hardly see it through the tears. He pulsed down to the mantra of _ please don’t die, _ which was slow and drawn-out enough to mimic the song that should have been in his head. His hand slipped once against the material of her swimsuit, and somewhere between the eighteenth compression and blinking, he saw that blood had pooled just within her shadow under the sun.

Gasping, he finished thirty and breathed against her lips and searched for a pulse and found _ nothing. _

_ Cold. _

_ Nothing. _

_ Cold. _

He could not identify the sound that ripped past his lips. He could only scramble back and ram through the door back into the house to fumble and drop the phone from their main line, his thumb slipping from the nine button in the tremors he couldn’t control.

Somewhere within the second ring, he lost consciousness of the moment—could hear a voice, answered, the air rippling around him like pool water, cold, nothing, shivering, body, red, 

pink, address, 

Panic.

nothing.

Cold.

  
  
  


She’d been dead for an hour when Jeno had reached her, 

and two by the time his dad came home, 

and forever since then.

  
  
  


The hole they buried her in was very large.

Jeno rather thought

he would fit in it

if they let him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> summary: Jeno finds his mother drowned at the bottom of the pool after hitting her head. He swims to retrieve her, pulls her out, then tries to resuscitate her, but she'd already been dead for an hour.


	18. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: unconventional self-harm. Absolutely nothing severe.

If he practiced enough in a short amount of time, he got worse. He fumbled. The taped blade would hit a part of his bare hands it wasn’t meant to. It wasn’t technically meant to hit his bare hands at all. He wore his gloves at school for many reasons, but left them off at home for many more.

Once, with enough tosses in two hours, he broke the skin across his knuckles. He hadn’t been paying attention, wasn’t fast enough, didn’t flip his hand for whatever reason, and it hurt enough to bring reflexive tears to his eyes.

It was a bad habit.

But a good distraction.

It made his dad hesitate almost always—sad, tired eyes drifting over the injuries he self-inflicted, but cleaned and wrapped.

“Does every guard member go through this?” his dad asked once, sliding a thumb so gently over his bruises.

Jeno hesitated, never liked lying to his dad. So he didn’t. “No. I just get lazy and the pain helps.”

His dad held him closer that night, lips pressed to the crown of his head as they sank into lavender and the home they could almost reach but never get back.

  
  
  


By the time school started for his third year, Jeno had safely managed to submerge himself in the pool and not have a full-fledged panic-attack. It was messy, and he almost always needed to take a break and go drown his senses in lemonade and hand-holding, but it was progress.

He felt strange about it. Returning to the water didn’t feel rewarding or even pleasurable. It was painful and wreaked havoc on his mind and insides every time he tackled it. Like systematically detangling a yarn that would then be thrown to the jaguars to disarrange all over again.

But it got easier each time, if so minutely he could hardly tell.

“It probably won’t ever be the same, will it?” asked Jisung as they lay in the sun and tried to dry themselves off through the heat alone. Jeno was also hoping the sun would burn away the desperate fear that still clung to his skin after holding himself underwater for fifteen seconds.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Jeno said, dragging in a breath and releasing it slowly. Chenle was fiddling with the soft baby hairs at Jisung’s temple as he flicked through his phone, but Jeno could tell he was paying half a mind. “Why did you tell me to go back in the water?”

Chenle looked up, squinting in the sunlight. “Why do you keep going back?”

  
  
  


Jeno experienced a new, unusual fear his first week when something remained persistently off about Renjun. Jeno had always been distantly respectful—he didn’t want to watch, but he allowed himself to be a pleasant receptacle for Renjun’s proximity, if it so happened to end up like that. He’d allowed himself that much, knowing quite well that he had a stubborn crush on a boy who hardly knew he existed.

But he was closed off and pinched from day one, anxious and reserved in a way Jeno didn’t remember him. He’d been _ fighty _ their first year, but ultimately pleasant, witty from a distance, playful, comfortable.

It sat badly in a similar way to how water clung to his skin after he’d already fled the pool.

The worst part was he couldn’t remember if Renjun had been like that the previous year. He could remember so little of it all that he found himself floundering in most respects—academically and otherwise. He thought he remembered Renjun being the same as first year, but grief sat strangely on everything, whether intimate or unknown.

Despite the tiny tingle of moral resistance, he started paying more attention, seeking out Renjun’s form on the sidelines of the field during practices, watching for some kind of hint. It felt obsessive to a degree he recognized, and he fought with it in a wrinkled, helpless way. He wasn’t daydreaming about or stalking him. Jeno let Renjun enter and exit his mind as was relevant and as appropriate as he could manage. He was already overly attached to a stranger—it was uncalled for to take it further than that.

It took three weeks for him to catch onto Sarwendah and realize their relationship wasn’t friendly. Whatever she was doing was very much not that. He’d never felt helplessness quite like he did when the information clicked with him. He’d certainly felt helpless on a deep, traumatic level, but not in an acrid, hurtful kind of way. In an entirely separate section with absolutely no acquaintanceships to bolster him, there was nothing he could do.

Jaemin was a different matter. He’d been aware of him since sixth grade and onwards, and the pathetic amount of information he’d collected on him through his various phases of ethical self-awareness had only grown.

The whole band liked Jaemin in a vague, feeling way—like they were confused, knowing he was nice and attentive to everyone, but not quite knowing why he felt so distant. It hadn’t been any different when Mark, Jaemin’s year-older friend, had been in band. Mark had simply been an exclusive exception, and Jaemin tended to seek him out like they weren’t in seperate sections. It helped that saxes were often near the flutes, which Jeno could only assess during football games their first year. 

He tried to look only during downtime, his flag resting between his palms as he watched the stands from down below. As a first year, Renjun was just on the afuche, bare fingertips messing with the silver beads. Jaemin was talking with his sectionmates, hair mussed from the shako everyone had worn and now removed from when they had approached down the lines of the track. He looked darling from afar in his social glow, where Renjun looked mildly pensive and reserved. Both were equally endearing. 

Sometimes, Jeno wished he had the courage to talk to them, but he was content to let them be. 

“Who are you looking at?” Tuyet asked, eyes aglitter with peach eye shadow. Only the guard could wear makeup in uniform—they had to, most of the time, though football games were the exception to the rule. As it was, she’d evidently chosen to wear it this time. 

Tuyet specialized in rifle, and was damn good at outclassing everyone at it. She was also exceptional at math, which was a boon for Jeno, who struggled on the best days. She also knew, as most of the guard did, that Jeno was hopeless. 

“Sax kid or pit boy?” she asked, leaning into Jeno’s lane. 

“Both,” he admitted. 

She faked a swooning sigh, and he smiled at her. “As usual,” she said, ultimately unsurprised. “I’m looking at Cesar. Those bullshit uniforms only look good on him. Look at that waist.”

He wasn’t interested in Cesar’s waist, and he thought his own two boys looked pretty okay in uniform, even if the whole getup truly was pretty dumb looking. Renjun couldn’t even remotely fill the shoulders of the coat—it was cute. Fortunately, Jeno had the benefit of a fitted guard uniform, so he had no complaints. 

“God, you really are single-minded. Or double-minded, aren’t you?” Tuyet laughed, fond. “You didn’t even look at my Cesar.”

Jeno swung his flag gently to hit her in the backs of her thighs, and she protested with a big, toothy smile. He hoped Cesar would ask her out soon. He was quite nice to her. 

  
  
  


Juvita lathered up her hands with gel before approaching Jeno’s hair—he was always the last to get ready hair-wise, since his struggle was by far the fastest. Slap some gel in, wrestle it around: voila! The girls had to allot four times the amount of minutes with their fine-toothed combs and longer locks.

“Can I ask you a question, sweet Jeno?” she asked, gently touching through his dark hair with her neat nails and soft fingertips. She always found some new term of endearment for him—so long as she was calling people “pretty one” or “angel” and not “toe-sucker” and “bland bastard,” everyone knew she was in a good mood. That being said, she’d never so much as looked at him or any of the first years in a mean way. He trusted the warmth she gave off.

“Yeah,” he said, and wasn’t concerned in the least of what the question might be.

“When you will have to choose one of your boys, who are you going to pick?” she asked, twisting his forelock to touch right above his brow bone.

He let himself think for only a moment before dropping his head back in a tilt to attempt eye-contact. Juvita withdrew her hands from his hair and let him see her curious smile. He searched her face for a single moment, trying to assess how serious she was exactly, before straightening again and twisting to face her like a normal human.

“I don’t think I can actually get either one of them to date me, Vita, let alone have the opportunity to choose,” he said, and he would be amused if he wasn’t so sure of himself on this one thing. “And even if it did happen like that,” he continued, then took a breath almost too large for his lungs, “I would like to be able to date them both.”

What had at first been a concerned and frustrated twist to her painted lips became an open-mouthed confusion. “Like _ cheating?”_ she asked, tone disbelieving enough for him to know she was alarmed more than anything.

“Like—like polyamory,” he almost hissed, and he was blushing now. “Not cheating, no. Of course not. Christ.” He remembered feeling hot all over his body—anxious that he’d revealed such an unconventional desire, alarmed over the misinterpretation, exposed in front of his senior. He almost jumped when the door to the guard room opened even though it was just Serenity grabbing her nail buff. She left with only a little flick of a wave, mind busy these days with college applications.

Juvita’s expression curled into Something Else, and in all Jeno’s nerves, he wasn’t sure which emotion she was expressing. “What’s polyamory? Like. I know polygons. Like—” she struggled, and wheeled her fingers as she did so until she reached for a wet towel and wiped all the gel residue off. She huffed, then settled her elbows on her knees while they continued to sit on the floor. “Explain.”

Jeno took another deep breath and wanted to rub his face so bad—if it weren’t for the makeup he was wearing, he would have. He couldn’t bring himself to face her, so he sat forward. “It’s not always the same thing. I don’t know. I’ve never done it. But it’s like—” He drummed his fingers on his knees in order to avoid biting his lips where the red tint had settled. “—dating two people at once, except everyone’s aware and okay with it. Some people date everyone in the group, sometimes it’s just one person committed to dating two people.” His stomach curled and squirmed in his belly, uncomfortable. It would never work for them. Would never happen that way. It was a pipe dream. Renjun and Jaemin didn’t even know each other.

Juvita stared at him in Jeno’s periphery, and he finally moved his whole body to face her. She blinked, and he held his breath, and then she relaxed for him to see. “You really are a romantic.” She sighed, and her lips curled into a smile, and relief had him smiling too. “If it works for anyone in the world, I hope it works out for you, gift.”

Her words felt a little like being given her blessing.

He exhaled all the pressure, feeling a little more right in places he didn’t realize he felt wrong, and said, “Thank you.”

  
  
  


His dad had always worked an average amount of hours—the only thing that kept him over was the commute. His mom had told Jeno that he’d pushed for those hours ever since Jeno was born, and it wasn’t always easy. Sometimes his dad was given cases he needed to grind his bones into dust over, and sometimes he had something he was working on that was important enough to him that he was left wrestling it even after he left work and came home.

None of that changed when his mom died—his dad was grieving and ruined in many ways, but he was home when he had always been home, and left when he had always left. The one thing that changed in terms of time was that he’d drive Jeno to school.

It wasn’t because Jeno didn’t have working legs in the morning, but rather it was painful for either of them to exist in a silent house. It was a strange emotional development considering his mother hadn’t always been home—she had had her own work and responsibilities—but somehow it didn’t matter. Her absence extended beyond that, and the house was hollow without at least two conscious occupants. Jeno hated being home without someone else there with him, and his dad hated waking up early to darkness and creaking quiet.

So Jeno started waking up early, eating breakfast while his dad filled him in on what his plans were for the day, letting his dad watch as he did his makeup. His dad freely offered up opinions on what colors would work best, and very occasionally, would try his hand at doing some creative work on Jeno’s eyelids and cheekbones over the weekend. 

The end result of waking early was, of course, getting to the band room far earlier than any and all of his peers. He’d made himself familiar to the janitors, who made awkward but forgivable quips on his makeup (much like someone doing their best not to disapprove of a thing in an effort to be kind). 

Jeno was vaguely sleepy most days, and definitely tended to knock out during his third period class like a compulsion. It was his luck only that allowed him a teacher who’d long given up on teenage disinterest, and Jeno wasn’t going to apologize anytime soon for being literally unable to keep his eyes open. It was one thing to wake up for zero period, but it was another thing entirely to wake up two hours before it, find time to practice, do his homework, _ and _ get to bed on time. Third period was his pitfall, and he fell into it daily.

Given the fact that he was only an indeterminate participant in that class, it surprised him to find a slip of paper slid under his arms only three weeks into the year.

_ My name is Caroline,_ it said. _ I sit behind you in this class, and I think you’re really handsome. Will you go out with me? Y/N _

The note made him wince first and foremost, and it took him almost ten entire seconds to decide that he would be circling the _ N _. He’d never gotten a note like this before, though he had been asked out a couple of times, and once someone even nabbed his number through some unfathomable means in order to ask him out. Rather than flattered, he continued to feel unnerved by these displays, unsure how to tackle them, unsure what people were seeing beyond his looks when he hardly said a word in his classes—sleeping or not. His participation grades were abysmal if applicable, even if his performance grades were not.

When he passed back the note, Caroline’s face contorted into something resembling disgust. Maybe it had been the shake in his hand when he pushed the note onto her desk. Or maybe it was the button on his backpack, which she made a point of kicking whilst slinging a slur.

It didn’t sting as much as she likely meant it to. Jeno knew who he was—as embarrassed as he remained about what (who) he wanted.

  
  
  


Jeno had known he was bisexual since late in seventh grade when puberty hit him like a sledgehammer gathering some crazed momentum for thirteen years. Jaemin was pretty in a way that knocked him breathless back then, but he could recognize a bias, even at that time. Girls were pretty, too.

He could hardly remember how it happened, but his self-assurance with the flexibility of his sexuality solidified in that same year—he’d kissed, or been kissed (he really couldn’t recall, now), by a girl, and it made his heart flutter and his lips tingle. He couldn’t even remember her name.

Later, he felt less ridiculous with his paper-thin proofs after making out with a different girl at some near-noxious eighth-grade dance. Her name had started with an L. The kiss had been heady.

At the time, he wanted to kiss a boy so badly it almost hurt, but couldn’t bring himself to try it.

Whoever it was wouldn’t be Jaemin, he’d thought.

Then felt gross and ridiculous and kept those thoughts to himself.

Later Renjun was added in, and Jeno still hadn’t kissed any boys, and that hadn’t changed even up until his eleventh year.

But other things hurt more, so he didn’t mind as much.

Still, he found Renjun desperately handsome, and he kept his ridiculous heart as far up his sleeve as he could manage. He understood his sexuality, but he would never understand how he took so fast to these two strangers. So quickly, so blatantly, and with such little warning.

  
  
  


“So,” said Meg, and her curls bounced pristinely as she swung her leg over a chair and settled her arms on the back. They were on a short break in the practice room—really just the cafeteria without all its tables—taking an evening to try to catch up to the rest of the band with how late their choreography came after each part was written. Jeno’s hands paused on his saber and he blinked. He waited, but she only stared at him.

“So?” he prompted, smiling just a little.

“Can I be real with you?” she asked, pressing her lips to her hands after chirping up. Her flag was abandoned at one side of her chair. He couldn’t imagine this particular first year _ not _ being real with anyone. She lacked a filter on the best of days.

“Will it begin with ‘no offense’?” he asked politely, smoothing the pads of his fingers along his taped blade.

She balked just slightly, and that was enough of a hint for him to brace himself. “I mean,” she said, an unintentional snark perpetual in her tone. Jeno could feel Tuyet’s eyes on the interaction—Meg was loud, and Tuyet was captain now. Jeno, as everyone in guard considered, could be fragile (he didn’t mind). “I just don’t get what you like about Jaemin.”

Jeno’s stomach flinched in a feeling he’d never experienced before. He swallowed its sharpness before he could identify what it was and gripped his saber a little more firmly.

“Like,” she continued, and Jeno could feel Tuyet’s gaze burn into Meg by the heat alone, “he’s just kind of fake?”

He tried not to hiss, but did anyway. He knew this—or rather, he knew that it was an opinion others had. High school was full of people trying little by little to shake off the petals of narcissism. When met with Jaemin, who exuded this fantastic, unearthly selflessness and other-centrism, people called him fake, too-sweet, not real, lacking in genuineness, whatever. Jeno figured it was in order to help them feel at ease with someone so much like who they wanted to be, but couldn’t be just yet.

Jeno had spent far too long on the fringe listening to people talk about Jaemin. He was popular, but somehow ostracized all at once, well liked but avoided. Jaemin’s whispers were about as prevalent as Jeno’s own.

“Like his laugh. Have you heard it?” Meg asked, and yes. Of course he had. “It’s uncomfortable. He’s obviously faking it. How can you like it?”

“Because I do,” he said, and just barely pulled back on his tongue in time to prevent his words from sounding angry. She was an underclassman. He would bite his tongue for her.

“But he’s just—” She wiggled her fingers in discomfort. Jeno wanted to stop talking about Jaemin. He didn’t really like doing so in the first place, criticisms or no. “I’ve been watching him cuz everyone says you like him and Renjun, and he’s just so _ off._ People say he’s popular, but no one _ really _likes him. I asked.”

In the midst of all of those words, Jeno cast a glance across the practice floor to Tuyet, whose eyebrows were raised. She was looking at him, and he thought he knew why. As carefully as he could, he exhaled and tried to relax. Tried not to shake. _ Jaemin is a stranger, _ he reminded himself. _ He is not your friend. _

“Are you done?” he said, and at first he thought Meg hadn’t understood him with how quiet his voice had dropped. She’d gone still in her chair. “Or do you want to say nasty things about Renjun, too?” His anger had cooled as soon as it flared. “Are you _ done?”_ he asked again, even softer this time, and Meg had gone red in the face.

As soon as Meg opened her mouth, Tuyet was there, hand coming down on Meg’s shoulder. Jeno could feel quite suddenly the rest of the guard quietly watching—some trying to spin, others having given up with their water bottles in their hands. “Meg,” Tuyet said firmly, “I don’t think Jaemin has ever done anything wrong to you. Please think before you speak.”

Meg went crimson, choked on herself, swallowed, then said, “I’m sorry.”

Jeno breathed out and let the hurt melt as he crouched to pick up her flag. He handed it to her without a word, then crossed to the other side of the room where he wouldn’t have to look at her until he regained his head.

  
  
  


The day after Sarwendah said what she had about his parents in front of Renjun, Jeno stepped back onto the tennis court for the first time in just under two years.

Sarwendah was his neighbor—the right nextdoor kind, to the point that if he happened to be in the wrong room at the wrong time, Jeno could almost make out the words her parents screamed at each other.

He hadn’t been aware of her until eighth grade, though she’d been around much longer than that. She and her mom would play tennis on the neighborhood courts around six o’clock every Tuesday and Thursday back then. With his limited knowledge of what a good tennis match was supposed to look like, he’d garnered that they weren’t doing it for anything more than some bonding time.

Mid-year through their first year of high school, the games stopped like a perfectly functional clock having its batteries whacked out.

Sarwendah sat against the fence with her racket held limp between her knees. A second racket was propped up right next to her, no mother in sight.

Jeno had never so much as said a word to her, but as he passed by on his way home, Sarwendah looked up and said, “You.” and he froze.

“Me?”

“Play with me,” she said, and reached back for the fence to pull herself up to a stand. “Please. My name is Sarwen. We’re neighbors. I need someone to play with. Please.” All the words came out in a rush, and when Jeno looked close enough, her bottom lip was wobbling painfully.

“I don’t know how,” he said, but approached the fence gate anyway.

“I’ll teach you,” she promised, voice a degree higher in either desperation or hope. “You can’t be lousier than me.” She beat him to the gate and opened it for him, handing him the racket and taking his backpack. She dropped it a few paces away from the gate, but on his side of the court.

Frankly, Jeno was overwhelmed by her assertiveness, but she _ did _ teach him, and neither of them were lousy at all, really. His dad called him naturally athletic, and his peers in physical education were routinely insulted by his ability to just…do most sports, so Jeno tended to believe him.

“Is your mom sick?” Jeno asked once it seemed like Sarwendah had relaxed slightly—it had been an hour or so of them attempting to get a consistent volley going.

“She went home for a month to take a break,” Sarwendah said, and it sounded like acid in a way Jeno had never heard before. He just barely managed to hit the ball back to her. “She’s done it before. My dad would have done it this time if his family lived in the country.”

At the time, he couldn’t imagine using this information against her—or any of the things she told him on the court concerning her parents’ marital struggles. He understood this wasn’t material for him to discuss with others, and he had no intentions of even imparting any of it to his mother, either. He couldn’t fathom being in her position, nor did he want to. His parents were deeply in love even when their tempers crackled. Of that he was sure.

And so he kept her secrets.

And he continued to keep her secrets as they continued a pattern throughout their first year of meeting on the court every week. She told him her troubles and frustrations, and he listened.

But that weekly activity for them first year became rapidly nonexistent second year, and by the time third year started, she acted like she didn’t know him.

Generally, he respected this. They’d never been close. If anything, he’d spent his time playing tennis to be the emotional support of someone almost totally disinterested in him for anything else. He was good at being there for her, but it definitely didn’t lead to any intimacy or emotional attachments on his own end.

Nonetheless, what she had said in the band room hurt him, and he thought himself an odd choice to pick battles with when he both knew her secrets and also knew what she was doing to Renjun. Being her confidant in earlier years felt a little different when she bit first.

It seemed appropriate to find her on the tennis court again after that, though.

“You’re probably shit at tennis, now,” she said as soon as she saw him. Her head had whipped up when he’d so much as jostled the gate, long hair swinging in a high ponytail much like her mother wore hers.

“You’ve gotten mean,” he said simply in reply, and dropped his bag on his end of the court.

There was no racket for him. She was only serving ball after ball from one end, then supposedly picking them up and repeating the process.

Her next serve very nearly hit him, and if it had, it would have bruised. He said nothing, only bending to collect some of the tennis balls for her and rolling them to her end of the court. There was a pause before she served again, but this time the hit was far from him. When he straightened, her face was curled into something complex enough that he didn’t even attempt to decipher it.

He took a deep breath. As she tossed another ball up, he said, “I’m sorry for saying what I did today.”

With a violence he should have expected, what grace the arc of her toss had was brutally interrupted as she slammed it into the fence with her racket. It rebounded, then bounced pathetically on the ground as the metal fence shook and trembled.

“You’re such a fucking _ bitch_, Jeno!” she snarled, but it bit upward like the yelp of an injured dog. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You think I’ll apologize to you just because you did it first? Go _ home_.”

He considered her. Wondered, for a moment, whether he ought to try to comfort her.

That wasn’t really his job, though, was it?

But he couldn’t imagine that anything he could say would make any situation better. Her role as a bully wasn’t his battle, and he rather thought Renjun wouldn’t appreciate him interfering without permission. He couldn’t impart wise words—he was hardly qualified—and he couldn’t bring her parents back together. Even if he could, some breaks wouldn’t heal.

Quietly, he rolled the last of the tennis balls in his grip back over to her and collected his backpack. The sky was getting darker, and his dad would be home soon.

“Be safe walking back,” he said after closing the gate, though she was only looking at her own white-knuckled grip on her racket.

He kept his own grip on his backpack straps to steady the tiny rush of adrenaline.

That apology had been difficult to give.

  
  
  


It was around the same time that Jeno started being able to do proper laps in the school pool that Chenle and Jisung started teasing him.

Progress had been a lot easier at school than in his home pool in part, Jeno was sure, because his mother hadn’t died in it. To put it simply. That didn’t mean, though, that he felt any better about the experience. He had long acknowledged that swimming was not entirely salvageable. It was a grueling process of healing and nothing more.

If he understood correctly, Chenle and Jisung were trying their hardest to make their afternoons in a chlorine cloud something he could look back on with some positivity.

“Jeno,” Chenle said, and further gathered his attention by kicking a wave of water against the back of his head while he was busy regaining his breath. As usual, Chenle sat at the edge with his feet and calves submerged, but he was nodding to the parking lot instead of doing literally anything else. “Look.”

Jeno looked, and he clung to the lip of the pool because otherwise he would have floundered. Flustered, he smacked Chenle’s leg, who only stared wide-eyed and giddy at his reaction. “I was right, huh? That’s him?”

Jeno darted another tiny glance beyond the bleachers and fence. Renjun was passing right along the barrier, immersed in texting someone on his phone. His nose was scrunched, lips upturned, and Jeno’s heart tugged like it was getting sucked into a tight tube he couldn’t quite coax it out of. “He’s _ one _ of them,” Jeno said. If Renjun so much as glanced in his direction he’d be ducking underwater indefinitely.

“He’s cute,” Jisung pointed out, having swam up with slow, lazy strokes.

“Yes,” Jeno said, but begrudged them for drawing it out of him. “I try not to think about it.”

Chenle snorted, offering up a tiny splash against Jeno’s face with his fingers. “People have crushes, you know. You could talk about them more than once every couple of months.”

“It’s—” Jeno began to protest, then swallowed. “They don’t even know me,” he said, and withstood Chenle, his younger, reaching out to ruffle his wet hair like a dog.

“You think most people go around blurting out ‘I love you’s to their crushes’ faces?” Chenle said, and Jeno would have blushed if he hadn’t taken note of Jisung sliding away like the nervous mouse he was first. But he couldn’t raise issue with his behavior. He wasn’t any better.

Jeno didn’t know how to respond to that, though he struggled to think of something for a good minute or so anyway. Chenle’s smile just brightened softly the longer he wrestled.

“I can’t,” Jeno said, finally.

“You could,” Chenle rebutted unhelpfully. “If you can get over your fear of water, you can probably get over your fear of them, right?”

Jeno could do little else but feel wildly uncomfortable with how Chenle was turning things around. He didn’t even have Jisung for backup. “I’m not…” Jeno faltered, his grip rapidly slipping from the argument. This was why he didn’t like talking to Chenle about them. “...afraid of them.”

“Oh, good,” Chenle said, pleased but in an orchestrated way. Jeno could feel himself already in the hole Chenle had dug for him. He hated Chenle’s holes. “Then talking to them should be comparatively easy.”

All Jeno did was make a noise—of duress, of complaint, of _ something. _ “No,” he said, and pushed off the wall and far, far away from Chenle.

The occasions continued, though. Every time Renjun passed the pool, Chenle would point him out like he would a pretty butterfly. Every day.

Every.

Day.

Renjun was often on his phone, though sometimes he was staring into space with his eyebrows furrowed. Sometimes his hands were moving to practice along an invisible instrument. Every time at the start, Jeno’s heart would lurch and he would run the risk of swallowing water. It got easier, though.

Jisung started pointing him out every so often, which was a betrayal of a different kind, but Jeno got used to both feelings. Instead, Jeno would look, and he’d let himself stare for two heartbeats before he let go because anything longer was just…wrong. Impolite.

The most startling moment was when Jisung found Jaemin crossing the parking lot. “Jaemin,” he said simply, like the word wasn’t an immediate buzzer for Jeno’s brain. He looked to confirm, but that was it. It was Jaemin.

Jeno would have liked if the pool were positioned on the other side of the high school.

The teasing continued, and Jeno adjusted like he always did, heart thudding irregular patterns each time. He never truly minded, but he did feel the end looming over him like a woolen cape ready to wrap him up and toss him off the edge of a cliff.

The dreaded words came eventually.

“I think you should talk to them,” Chenle said, mild, just kicking his legs in the water while Jisung dried off beside him.

“I know you do,” Jeno said, rubbing out his hair with his own towel. They’d washed in the changing rooms as always, but Jeno had a feeling he carried the smell of chlorine around with him just like Jisung did these days. 

By responding that way, Jeno was desperately trying to dodge what was to come whilst also not to give away that he knew, instinctively, that he was running out of time.

Chenle hummed. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”

There it was. Chenle had alchemized a mere possibility into a matter of _ when _ with just a measly handful of words. He _ would _ be doing this, and Chenle was willing to go with him.

Jeno squeezed his eyes closed and pressed his towel to his face. “God, Chenle,” he groaned. “Why now?”

He could almost feel Chenle shrug through the air, and he heard him extract himself from the pool and shake the water off his legs. “You swam for thirty whole minutes today without taking a break,” he said like a silent promise gone fulfilled.

Jeno let his towel drop from his eyes and hang around his shoulders, sucking in one long breath. He held it, waited until he could feel his heart beating in his lungs, then let it go. “Fine. But I don’t want you there.”

Chenle laughed. “Fine. Jisung and I will hang out without you.”

Jisung looked both cornered and pleased. Someday, his time would run out, too.

Jeno searched Chenle’s face, and all he found was a smile. Pride, maybe. Satisfaction, definitely. “I’m not giving you a play-by-play,” Jeno said.

Chenle grinned brighter, and Jeno wondered, distantly, where he would be without him. “Tradition suggests you will, though.” Quietly, Jeno shoved at Chenle’s arm and watched him teeter and slide dramatically over to Jisung’s side. “I’m excited for you,” he said, and Jeno wanted to grip those words with both hands and melt them into his blood.

“I’m—” He hesitated one last time, then sighed and let himself leave it all behind. “I’m excited, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have now met Jeno.
> 
> Was he who you thought he was?
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	19. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I let myself take a little more time with this chapter since I posted a lot of chapters in a very short amount of time before this. After releasing Jeno from his shackles (kidding, mostly), it took my brain a moment to remember where on _earth_ I was for the rest of the story.
> 
> I want to say thank you to everyone who received Jeno's chapters kindly, as well as all of the readers who are kind enough to comment so that I can hear their thoughts and enjoy their opinions ♡ Being able to talk to you guys means a lot to me. I'm doing my best to chip away at the comments! I promise I'll reply to all of them in due time ;; Please know I'm so grateful.
> 
> I like this chapter a lot, I think! Please enjoy!

Renjun’s history teacher let the two of them sit next to each other, thought it was more because his history class lacked a seating chart. They were at the back this time with one of Renjun’s notebooks flipped open and Donghyuck’s purple pen already out and scrawling.

_idk abt jeno I havent seen much of him yet_

Renjun’s pen of choice was orange, and its ballpoint was soft and slidey.

W_e’ll see him after school w/ Jaemin and two other kids. Jisung—Korean, looks like a cute weed, shy and Chenle—Chinese, shorter, purple hair. Jisung and Jeno swim._

_I thought u couldnt do band + other electives_

_Jisung’s the swimmer. Jeno just joins him to cool down after polo. So we’ll hang around for an hourish then head over._

_will u want to practice?_

Renjun hesitated, pressing the end of his pen against his bottom lip and running it longways against his skin. Donghyuck gave him a significant look, and put his pen to paper again.

_practice for 30 then hang? I can tell u if u suck_

Renjun smiled and gave a tiny huff just as the teacher started diving into a description on war crimes. He underlined the second part of what Donghyuck wrote, then replied, _Might have to listen to the original during passing then. Or you won’t know._

The expression Donghyuck gave him was almost too good not to laugh at. So while Donghyuck scrawled something, Renjun pressed his palm to his own mouth to stop from wheezing.

_amazing u think I havent listened to it 1k times already what kind of bff do u think I am_

“I’m sorry,” Renjun whispered, barely more than a breath, and Donghyuck dropped his hand to squeeze Renjun’s knee under the table. He was warmed by the thought that Donghyuck would do something so unnecessary for him, especially since until now, there would hardly be any practical payoff. Although, he supposed it would be possible that Donghyuck just liked the song after checking it out initially.

As Donghyuck doodled at the corner of the previous page, Renjun keyed back into the lesson. It only worked for maybe twenty seconds before his pen was back on the page.

_Do you like Jaemin?_

Donghyuck stopped to read the question, then continued drawing a scruffy sort of bear-looking thing while he mulled over the previous interactions. It was only when Donghyuck added frills that Renjun realized it was meant to be something else.

_Ugly lion._

_no u,_ Donghyuck jotted, then finally answered the question. _hes nice I think he really wants me to like him which like idk to me that says hes either playing u or rly likes u_

Renjun muted a hum as he settled his cheek in his free hand and considered Donghyuck’s words. Before he could conjure up a response, Donghyuck continued writing.

_Im biased bc u like him so I want to like him too I think hes trying + he rly looks at u like hes scared like. not like ur scary but like he wants u there_

Renjun tried to think about this observation—it butted heads with his firm belief that Jaemin was grossly confident most days, and yet.

_He’s different today,_ Renjun offered. _He’s not usually so nervous._ Because Renjun agreed. Of all the times Renjun had been able to see Jaemin, which hadn’t been too many, Jaemin resembled far more the boy in the bathroom or the minimal confidence at karaoke than the boy who told Renjun he smelled like white tea or shoved himself into his lunch break.

_y?_

Donghyuck returned to adding scratchy shading to his lion, then skipped down a few lines to restart and maybe do better while Renjun considered Jaemin’s mannerisms.

_I’ve barely met Jaemin’s friends. I might be nervous too._

Donghyuck looked skeptical. _did u meet jenos?_

Renjun rubbed his thumb against the corner of his notebook paper. The teacher had moved on to a slideshow at the front of the classroom, and had been diverted just once by a student asking a question. As an AP class, her lessons tended to resemble lectures more than anything else, which was nice for when Renjun was distracted to hell and back.

_Yes,_ Renjun admitted, _and I was fine, but I don't think him being nervous is weird?_

Donghyuck conceded with a small head nod before reaching for Renjun's pen and taking it right out of his hold to decorate his new and improved lion with an orange mane. Renjun watched him finish the doodle, and then tried not to smile when Donghyuck sighed.

_I like him I think. I think he rly does like u_

Renjun hummed, then took Donghyuck's purple pen now that his orange had been pilfered. _Why can’t you be giggly and stupid like other people’s friend about my crushes?_

Donghyuck choked on a noise of disdain, which only made Renjun smile. _I hope ur a bastard 2 abt my own crushes if it ever_

Renjun knocked Donghyuck’s hand off track and watched the ink line swoop through his second lion. Donghyuck looked like he’d done him a great injury, and Renjun really wished they weren’t stuck in a classroom so he could cry with laughter in peace.

As far as Renjun could tell, Donghyuck was only so self-critical where he couldn’t be seen or heard by anyone who didn’t know that he hated to be pitied. Hated to be looked down upon. On paper just between the two of them, he was safe, but only to an extent. So he’d just have to suffer through the destruction of his doodle, because Renjun wouldn't be having it. Neither of them took prisoners when cutting through each other’s bullshit.

* * *

It took longer to get back to the band room than anticipated, to no fault of Donghyuck’s, who looked like he’d rather do anything than trade pleasantries with some random acquaintance. Renjun allowed himself to find some humor in the way Donghyuck’s fingers curled into the fabric of his jeans.

“You’re back!” she’d said, and through some miracle, Renjun remembered she was in drama. The department student president had been trying to snag him for the entirety of second year after he’d released a gag film with some of the choir kids. It was funny, because “drama kids” held the same kind of awkward confusion people spoke into the words “band geeks.” A different breed. An unusual culture of rabid cliques within one niche collective. “We thought you’d died!” Her hair stuck up in a wild, platinum pixie, her makeup a glittery black.

“I moved, actually,” Donghyuck said, expression cool. She’d caught them just outside Renjun’s last class, and he had to admit he’d only noticed her in passing until this point. The wind picked up on campus to play with Donghyuck’s waves while people shoved past for the extracurriculars and hangouts.

“Oh,” she said, voice warm to contrast his. “God, it’s so nice to see you again. I used to have the biggest crush on you, you know?”

Renjun tried not to let those words register on his expression, but he just ended up twisting his mouth into something extremely unflattering in an effort not to laugh. Donghyuck’s lips had parted, but that was just about the only tell for his surprise. “Okay?” he said, word drawn out as long and weird as the awkward energy stirring around him was. “Glad you could get it out now.”

Renjun had half a mind to turn around and escape, but he knew from experience that Donghyuck would make a terrifying attempt to kill him for it.

The girl was finally hit by what kind of situation she was in, and the shift in her face and body language actually made Renjun feel bad. Her face went an indelicate shade of crimson.

Donghyuck took a breath and jabbed a thumb in Renjun’s direction. “I’m kind of visiting for someone else, though,” he said, voice dipping into brightness, “so I’ll get going.”

“Oh,” she said, and her glance over was so brief it was like getting bumped into by a fly. “Right. Of course.”

“Thanks,” he said, and there was just a little more appreciation in his voice than before, slapping a tiny bandaid over her shame as he pivoted and walked away.

Renjun finally let out a strangled breath. “If you made me an enemy…”

Donghyuck pulled a face and rolled his eyes. “High school’s so stupid. She’ll get over it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and sidled past a gaggle of students blocking the quad walkway. “What am I supposed to say, anyway? ‘I wish I could say the same about you but you never talked to me?’”

With a hiss, then a laugh, Renjun tried to imagine Donghyuck actually saying that. Renjun supposed he started lucky and remained lucky. He didn’t fall for strangers easily, which kept him in the clear for most crushes. The blond boy (the original one, though at this point he paled in comparison to Jeno) had been his lab partner in science first year, and since him, Jaemin and Jeno were his firsts. They’d approached him and somehow, inexplicably, _stayed._

“What would you do if I were crushing on Jeno or Jaemin and refused to introduce myself?” Renjun asked right as they approached the metal band room door. There were a few fourth-year bandmembers rough housing just outside the entrance and Renjun had to wedge himself in between them to yank the door open.

It wasn’t until they were both inside that Donghyuck answered. “Depends on how pathetic you were about it. It’s one thing to pine. It’s another thing to confess when your chance has come and gone.” Renjun couldn’t imagine unrequited pining after those two—it was bad enough as it already was.

“Would you have dated her before if she had asked?” Renjun started to pull off his backpack as they approached the back of the band room where the marimba was. It was still after-school social time, so the spacious room was stocked with teasing and recitations of drama among Renjun’s peers. My Linh was seemingly rummaging in the pit cabinetry for something she had misplaced, and there was a first year playing Pokémon in the corner, but otherwise the instruments were clear.

“If she asked before I knew I was moving,” Donghyuck said, and dodged a couple of first years on his way to snag a chair from the stacks. In the band room, Donghyuck was mostly invisible aside from the few people who noticed him and ended up giving him a wide, nervous berth. The band often joked humorlessly about banning outsiders from the band room—partially because there were valuable things that could be stolen. Renjun could admit he was in a clique.

Renjun accepted Donghyuck’s answer and took the covering off the marimba, reaching for his mallets with his other hand. The crowd was petering very slowly, and so long as he played quietly, no one would shoot him dirty looks. Donghyuck pulled out his phone and crossed his legs, chair situated in front of the marimba and one tier down. “Let me know when you want me to pay attention.”

Renjun nodded and started washing out all the distractions to focus.

There was something cathartic about playing percussion. Piano was what drew him into the mallet instruments—all of the notes and scales already made sense to him—but whereas Renjun reached a sense of release and gratification at the end of each piano piece, he could feel small amounts of those feelings throughout an entire session on percussion. The impact and bounce of the mallets, the spacial consideration and concentration, the full-body feeling of moving with the decrescendos and seeing the vertical aggression with the crescendoes. He knew that piano held greater prestige, of a sort, but he felt it paled in comparison—just for him. Just for him and what resonated with the hollows inside his body and the stress in his mind.

After everything realigned in his head, he leaned over the instrument and prodded Donghyuck with the two mallets in his left hand. “Ready.” 

Donghyuck put his phone away and folded his hands in his lap, wiggling his brows. “Ready?” he asked, just to make sure.

Renjun huffed a laugh before adjusting his grip. Quietly, he felt out the time of the piece for two breaths before starting. And, just like with the band shows, he let himself get softly lost in it. He’d grown, hopefully, in trying to master this piece and wring some earnest emotion out of himself in the midst of the notes.

There wasn’t a single youtube video he could find covering this song on marimba, so, admittedly, the composition was entirely his own. He’d wrestled with it and wrangled it into something he was maybe even a little proud of. He just hoped it would be enough.

It wasn’t until he was done and looked up that he noticed both Jaemin and Jeno had joined Donghyuck.

“Wah,” Jaemin said, and began to clap from his cross-legged lankiness on the floor. He leaned into Jeno, who was seated next to him and hugging his knees, and brought a hand up to cover his mouth. “That was really good,” Jaemin said behind his hand, but really _very_ loudly. Jeno gave a curt nod, eyes doing that cute crescent smile.

Renjun tried not to suffocate on his embarrassment. This was a Jaemin he was more familiar with, but it didn't make him any more accustomed to his antics.

Donghyuck looked mock-annoyed, scoffing with a smile taking over his mouth. “It was good.”

Renjun fiddled with the ends of his mallets and tried not to look too intently at Jeno and Jaemin. He did spare them a smile, however, because he wasn’t keen on ignoring them, either. “Anything suck?”

“You took a deep breath and tensed right before one of the sections,” Donghyuck offered. “It didn’t seem like you had a hard time with it, but it looked like you thought it was hard.”

He had to think back, then commit that feedback to memory—practiced mistakes clung to the body and he hadn’t been aware he’d done that at all. 

“You did this thing where you smiled halfway through and I felt my heart flutter,” Jaemin said. “That was nice.”

“Oh my god,” Renjun said, the words slipping out before he could manage to think them through.

“Gross,” Donghyuck laughed, and god. Jaemin had his fingers around Jeno’s ankle and that plus the comment was somehow too much.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Renjun said, and his voice barely concealed the laugh in his lungs and the mortification in his throat. He tried his best to sound teasing, and Jaemin seemed to interpret it that way, his face splitting into a smile bordering on goofy.

“I’ll have to take Jeno with me,” Jaemin said, and Jeno’s look of brief confusion, then acceptance was…a lot. He felt like his wants and urges were collecting on a cliff fifty feet above the ground where he’d fallen and hadn’t quite gotten his bearings yet. He ripped his attention away from them and lagged, instead, on Sarwendah standing midway between the band lockers and his group.

She sneered at him. He felt his stomach sink.

And then Donghyuck turned, hooked his elbow over the back of his chair, made direct eye-contact with Sarwendah just as she took a step forward and said, “Is this the bitch?”

Renjun choked as Sarwendah went a blotchy shade of almost-purple. She lurched like a struggling train, then strode over with her lips pursed and jaw clenched. Jeno had let go of his legs and was watching her, Jaemin had his thumbnail between his teeth and one eyebrow raised, and Renjun wondered if this was what an impending disaster felt like.

“Who the fuck are you?” Sarwendah asked as she passed Donghyuck and shoved herself between the marimba and vibraphone. The marimba shifted under her aggression, and Renjun’s hands jumped needlessly to make sure it didn’t roll away despite its wheels being locked. He didn't have time to block her hands from reaching for his spare mallets from the bag he’d set out on top of the corner cabinetry.

His usual fury was tamped down considerably by having three of his most significant people in proximity, and the result was just a mess in his chest of adrenaline, fear, and the hurtful pinch of vexation.

“Put those back,” Donghyuck said, and his tone was chilling. Renjun had heard it once—only once—when he’d called someone out in sex-ed class first year for being sexist. “Someone might think you don’t know how to use your own mallets, Sarwen.”

Sarwendah froze, then gripped her stolen mallets so tightly her knuckles went yellow. “Someone might think you don’t know how to introduce yourself. What do you know?” she snapped.

Donghyuck snorted, looking for all the world like the shitty plastic chair he was in was a sort of chaise longue. “I know you’ve got nothing better to do than take your personal issues out on anyone who reminds you that you’re mediocre and pathetic.”

Renjun witnessed Sarwendah’s mouth open in wordlessness, her expression furling into fury.

“Put Renjun’s mallets back,” Donghyuck suggested, and this time his voice was sweet like honey-butter, head tilted in a challenging cuteness. “Or I can tell these two right here all about the nasty things you’ve done. I’ve heard Jaemin’s popular in the band, and Jeno?”

Jeno, somehow, looked very unsurprised to be called out, and only raised his eyebrows. Jaemin, on the other hand, looked like he was witnessing a bare-knuckled brawl. “Mm.”

“Does the color guard gossip?”

Jeno’s mouth tightened in what could only be amusement, and he sat back with his palms against the ground. “They do.”

Donghyuck looked back at Sarwendah, taking in her silent crackling of rage and now humiliation. “But it’s no big deal if you put his mallets back and get your own. You know, like any other responsible person would.” He sighed. Renjun was really rethinking Donghyuck’s refusal to go into drama. “I’ll take it upon myself to apologize if you grabbed them on accident, of course. Unlike you, I know how to do that.”

Sarwendah broke. _“Fuck_ you—”

Donghyuck turned to Renjun. “May I?”

Renjun swallowed, then let out a breath. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck reached down to nudge Jaemin’s thin shoulder. “Did you know that this bitch tried outing Renjun to the rest of the pit? It was lucky half of them knew already. And you know, she really underestimated how nice most people are in comparison to herself, so it was okay, right Renjun?”

This moment was a nice reminder to Renjun that Donghyuck was mindful and cautious. He’d chosen by far the least hurtful of any of Sarwendah’s actions to tell Jaemin and Jeno, and one that would have been easy for him to tell them himself. Linnie had outed herself in the midst of Sarwendah’s tirade, he remembered, and the tension had diffused like punched dough. “Right,” he said, careful not to disrupt Donghyuck’s flow. He bit his lip once, then mouthed a word at Donghyuck.

His best friend took a dramatic breath, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, oh, and you know—Renjun asked for you two to keep his backpack, right?”

Renjun was trying to look multiple places at once, but it genuinely startled him when Jaemin’s expression darkened. “Yeah?”

“It's ‘cause she dumped water all over it and soaked all of his notebooks. Sarwen, did you know that’s called property damage? Do you know how nice Renjun has to be to not report you for that?” Donghyuck shifted, leaning forward, elbows on his knees and stared Sarwendah in the face. “Sarwen, did you know that for every mean thing you’ve done, Renjun has proven himself better than you ten times over? If you’re trying to drag him down, you’re doing a real bad job of it, because each time you do, everyone else becomes far better than you’ve proven yourself to ever be.”

Renjun couldn’t help but let out another breath, this one fairly loud because _holy shit. _

With a discordant resonance, Sarwendah slammed down his mallets on the bare vibraphone set, blinking furiously, and squeezed between the instruments again. For a moment, Renjun thought Donghyuck might get punched in the face, but she just _left. _Renjun could see her palms come up to wipe at her eyes in jerky motions as she shoved past the remaining band members. Donghyuck hadn’t been loud, so the groups she’d pushed looked on with confusion and maybe the barest hint of concern.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck said as soon as the door to the band room closed behind her. “That was excessive.”

All Renjun felt inside himself was a bundle of relief and…something like gratitude. He considered his relationship with Sarwendah his own war, but Donghyuck knew everything. If he’d been being bullied in Michigan, Renjun would have done the same. “It’s okay,” he said, though still a little stunned. He didn’t know what other words to push out of his mouth. Jaemin and Jeno hadn’t really budged, spectators, but there was nothing in their faces that suggested they were alarmed or insulted by what had just happened.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Jaemin asked, and directed the question at Renjun. “Like—” He stopped abruptly, staring at him. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah,” Renjun said, almost blurting it breathlessly. “It was a lot, but I’m fine. I think she—”

“She’ll be fine,” Jeno said, and when all eyes were on him, he didn’t even flinch. “She’s my neighbor. Her parents aren’t mean to her, and no one ever says anything back to her to her face. She deserved it.”

“She’s your _what?”_ Renjun asked, and tried to wrap his mind around this absurd shred of information. “Are you friends?”

“No,” Jeno said simply. “And I’m not interested in that. Especially not now.”

Whatever negative feeling had started to rise immediately swallowed itself down, and it was only when Renjun looked down at his hands that he realized they were trembling so badly the mallets were almost hitting the marimba. “Can we leave?” he heard himself ask, and Jaemin was already pulling himself up by the back of Donghyuck’s chair.

“Mm,” Jeno said. “Practice will be wrapping up soon.” He took the hand Jaemin offered him, and Jaemin said something to Donghyuck Renjun almost missed (“You have a way with words.”).

Donghyuck smiled as Renjun fumbled to put both sets of mallets away and pull the coverings over the instruments again. Jeno came over to help as Jaemin took Donghyuck’s chair and lugged it back over to the stacks. As Jeno tugged on the black cloth, he said, “You can ask about her if you want, but I don’t like her and I’m not friends with her.” It was firm and reassuring, and Renjun found he believed him.

With a shaky exhale, Renjun nodded. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Jeno’s smile, when Renjun looked up, was considering and warm. “We do.” Jeno’s gaze flicked to the side in the next moment and his hand came up in a tiny wave.

The first year playing Pokémon was still in her corner, somehow even more cramped into her space than before. She looked like a mouse caught in a trap, and Renjun found himself flushing from his chest to his ears.

His hands were still shaking when he walked over to stow his mallets away. “Did you see all that?” he asked her. Her name was Aishe, and she had dozens of anime and video game buttons on her backpack. She mixed with a couple of the clarinets for their common interests despite the class barrier.

“I’m sorry,” she said in response, fingers twiddling with her handheld.

Renjun opened up the cabinet and slid his bag in with the others, hoping desperately he wouldn’t find all of his mallets gone in the morning. “Don’t be. This is your band room too.”

Aishe gave the most wobbly giggle Renjun had ever heard. “Your friend is scarier than you,” she mumbled, and Renjun had to bite his tongue before he laughed.

He closed the cabinet but remained crouching. “I’ll work on being less scary, yeah?”

She nodded, and he stood up and left her alone to rejoin Jeno. He wanted to reach out to him. Ask for his hand to be held so at least one of them would stop shaking. Realistically, though, he wasn’t sure if it would help or make him more nervous. “Well, the news might spread,” Jeno said, voice toned low as he walked with Renjun to catch up to Jaemin and Donghyuck, who were already out the door.

Renjun swallowed and nodded, then somehow managed to shrug. “You two won’t leave me, right?” he asked, and it was so highly vulnerable, he wasn’t even sure how it made its way past his filter.

As Jeno pulled open the door, he looked at Renjun carefully, calmly. “I doubt it.”

Renjun didn’t have a deep fear of being left, but he had a deep hatred of the idea—Donghyuck had done it against his will, but not unreasonably. Ruolan might leave some day, too. He could feel himself starting to cling to both Jeno and Jaemin, and he wanted them to stay. He wanted to know them better. He wasn’t good at letting go of anything. Anger, people, budding high school romances.

With embarrassment, Renjun pushed at his hair and nodded. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, and found he was holding Jaemin and Jeno to a lot of their words.

“Please do,” Jeno said, smiled, and before Renjun could breathe properly, Jeno was catching his raised hand and squeezing it. Bandaids and tape and all.

From a distance, Renjun could hear Donghyuck complaining, calling them lovebirds without their third, telling them to hurry up, _come on. _Renjun felt happy, he thought.

Maybe he was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Hyuck popped off, didn't he. Hopefully some of you got some real catharsis from that ♡ 
> 
> Don't know when the next chapter will be up, but I've always been fairly good at updating consistently ^^ So I'll just say see you soon!
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts if you have any! Much love ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
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	20. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, guys. I'm so sorry I've been so bad at getting back with the comments. I'm plugging through them slowly, though, I promise ;; Thank you so much for your support.
> 
> Chapters like this one and the previous are always slower to write for me. Hopefully things will pick up soon, but I thank you for your patience util then ♡ Enjoy!

Some days, he offered no excuse. Some days, he ignored everything.

He clung to the knowledge that he’d survived every broken rule or snapping anger. He survived getting hit with an empty pitcher, survived his mom saying she didn’t love him. Short of killing him, they couldn’t do much worse. They didn’t dare take his phone for the sheer, paranoid need to be able to track him like a tagged reservation animal. They’d demanded to know his password for his email, had deleted his phone apps before, had overturned his room for incriminating things like he’d done anything ever to deserve it or would dare to do anything where they could find him.

So he put his phone on airplane mode, knowing he’d be skinned alive, and offered no excuse for why he would not be coming home from school right away. There was a growing part of him that knew he shouldn’t be punished for merely asking to hang out with friends after school. His grades had never dropped below a ninety-five in any class. He worked for his own money when he had time. He didn’t eat the food that wasn’t his. He kept his room clean, did his chores when they asked and even when they didn’t, kept his things out of their living spaces. He could do little more to take up less of their lives. Yukhei had let it slip once that Jaemin was just a punching bag they couldn’t get out of their living room.

It had hurt, but he hadn’t needed Yukhei’s apology.

This defiance wasn’t growth, though. His courage was constantly in flux.

“How’d you meet them?”

Jaemin zipped his phone away into one of the smaller compartments of his backpack, then faced Donghyuck properly. “Um, I was looking for something in the guard room and Jeno helped me.” In front of them, there was the sound of a loud smack and a yelp as Chenle gave Jisung a an open-palmed red star on his stomach when he wasn’t looking. The pool had been cleared out from the polo team some minutes prior, but Jeno hadn’t ducked into the changing rooms yet. Jisung was gesticulating with his big hands and lanky arms, as it were, though only Renjun, Chenle, and Jeno were privy to the reason. Donghyuck had pulled Jaemin to the stands after introductions. “And Renjun…” Jaemin rubbed at his bottom lip, trying to remember. It had only been a little longer than a week and a half, but. “I just realized I didn’t know him?”

He looked at Donghyuck, unsure if he was being assessed or not. Under the heat of the sun, he radiated an energy that would have unsettled Jaemin if he didn’t know better. “How’d you meet him?” Jaemin volleyed back.

Donghyuck hummed and situated himself so he could lean his elbows back on the upper tier of the bleachers. “Sixth grade. I was an idiot even then and called him ugly because he accidentally hit me in the face with a soccer ball during recreation.”

Jaemin bit his lip and tried not to laugh. “And then?” He reveled in the smile Donghyuck gave him. This, he knew, was himself being desperate for everyone—important or otherwise—to like him. Donghyuck was important, so his approval was something he would cling to like a magpie discovering something shiny. If Donghyuck liked him, maybe Renjun would like him even more. If Donghyuck _didn’t _like him, then he might lose Renjun entirely. It would be the equivalent of Mark meeting Jeno or Renjun properly and informing Jaemin he didn’t trust them.

Mark wasn’t a very trusting person, but he didn’t distrust blindly. His judgment was good.

“I don’t remember the details,” continued Donghyuck. “We somehow got into a betting match and he swore I wouldn’t be able to climb one of the high trees just outside of the school boundaries.”

“Did you?” Jaemin felt like he already knew the answer.

“I did. Scraped up my hands like crazy.” Donghyuck let out a sigh, then a laugh. “I’m afraid of heights, though, and Renjun’s nice so he got worried, so—”

_“Jaemin!”_

Jaemin screamed his soul right out of his chest as the wire fence behind them both shook from the impact of someone into it. His hands jumped to make a claw into his shirt, his heart attempting to run for it through his ribs and skin.

“Oh god, oh shit. I’m sorry.”

Yukhei.

“Jesus, Xuxi.”

Mark.

Jaemin could envision Yukhei’s fingers curling into the diamonds as if he could reach him and pull gently at the hairs at his nape in a soothing gesture. “Nana, I’m sorry.”

He was fine. Nothing was wrong. He was safe.

Jaemin took a shuddering inhale. When he glanced up, everyone was looking at him. Jisung with his red handprint on his stomach. Chenle, eyes wide. Renjun tense and Jeno with his eyebrows pinched. He could feel Donghyuck’s eyes flicking between him and his friends behind the fence. 

Jaemin slipped off the bleachers as his heart hiccuped in his chest, taking in swallows of air to keep the panic response he wished he didn’t have at bay. “Just a second,” he mumbled, and forced a smile that was at least as genuine as his relief. He left his backpack with Donghyuck, perhaps in subconscious anticipation for the open arms Yukhei offered him with apology when he met him at the gate.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Yukhei said again, never short on the ability to express remorse, and Jaemin tried his best not to snuggle into Yukhei’s chest in front of the people he temporarily left.

“S’good. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

Mark, just behind Yukhei and with his fingers around the metal bar of the entrance, huffed gently. “That’s not your fault.” If Jaemin peeked at him, Mark looked like he got out of a tussle with an exam by the skin of his teeth, hair mussed and a tiny smudge at the corner of his glasses.

“Did you need anything?” Jaemin said against the fabric of Yukhei’s shoulder. He would rather die than complain about how long Yukhei made his hugs—where else was he supposed to get prolonged physical affection?

Mark didn’t seem to mind anyway.

“Our texts weren’t going through so we gave the campus a quick scrub for you,” Mark admitted.

Yukhei patted Jaemin’s back once and released him. Oxygen came back into his lungs new and brighter, and he found his heart a lot calmer. “Sorry about that,” Jaemin excused. “I don’t want—”

Mark made a humming sound—not to cut him off necessarily, but to show he didn’t need further explanation. Jaemin allowed Yukhei to tidy his hair for him, fingertips soft, while Mark brushed it off and continued onward. “Your mom is going to a board meeting tonight. We thought we could go stargazing or something.” Mark’s mom and his own were both on some obscure history board that neither son was interested in. To Jaemin’s knowledge, Mark had gone to a meeting once or twice for the food and filial piety. Jaemin had never been invited let alone coerced. Something about him seemingly clashed against his mother’s public aura.

“Stargazing?”

“Yuqi’s working late but promised to bring snacks,” Yukhei said, like that properly answered the question. “Mark and I are planning to study up on constellations.” This he said with sparkly enthusiasm, and Jaemin made no effort to curb a smile.

“I’d like to learn something I won’t be tested on,” said Mark, and looked disgruntled enough that Jaemin felt a thrill over his instincts being correct.

“How many exams?” he asked.

“Three,” he said. “How the fu—huh.” Mark’s expression went from agitated to bemused in a single second, eyes diverted to some distance behind Jaemin. His hand crept up and he gave the tiniest wave, and when Jaemin looked over his shoulder, Donghyuck was the one who initiated the gesture. He was waving wide, eyes bright in a burning curiosity Jaemin could feel from four or so meters away. “Why am I getting waved at?” Mark mumbled.

Jaemin bit down on a laugh and took both his and Yukhei’s hands, pulling them into the pool space properly. A quick assessment told him Jeno had left for the changing room. Chenle was poolside with his shoes off, Jisung in the water with his hands on Chenle’s bare knees. Renjun had tucked himself up by Donghyuck. Jaemin felt some nerves not knowing whether anyone had been talking about him.

“Donghyuck,” Jaemin said, once they were close enough. Neither boy had taken their hands back. “This is Mark and Yukhei. Guys, this is Renjun’s best friend. He’s from Michigan.”

“Was wondering whether you’d actually say hello,” Donghyuck said, elbows leaned on his knees now.

Mark only blinked at him, but Yukhei moved forward to offer his hand. Donghyuck graciously took it. “We were asking Jaemin out for stargazing,” Yukhei said, bright, pleasant, immediately sitting just below Renjun and Donghyuck on the next bench.

“Asking out?” Donghyuck asked.

“As friends,” Jaemin interjected, and met Renjun’s eyes, who looked like he hadn’t been worried in the first place. He only smiled at Jaemin, and he was stuck trying to figure out which pole he had a greater magnetism to—Mark or Renjun.

“Would you two and company want to come along?” Yukhei asked, and of course he would. He functioned by the present minute rather than the future.

“Xuxi—”

“We have three cars,” Yukhei interjected, blithe.

Mark let out a breath, and then next moment nudged Jaemin away from him—a freeing motion. Jaemin took it and circled around to Renjun. “I’d have to ask my parents,” Renjun said, and there was a tinge of nerves in his voice. “I have a big assessment tomorrow.”

Yukhei made a noise of sympathy, not batting an eye at how Jaemin timidly hooked his ankle with Renjun’s, though Renjun’s hand twitched in surprise. “We’d get you home by eleven at the latest. Earlier, probably, since Mark’ll probably fall asleep anyway. Leave around five to get there.”

Mark’s face wrinkled in something complex, then abruptly shifted again upon hearing Donghyuck snort a laugh. “Do you sleep through movies, too, Mark?” Donghyuck teased, and Mark looked like he didn’t know what to do with this stranger prodding at him.

“I try not to,” he said, looking for all the world like he wished his greatest occupation was deciding how and where to sit down, not tackle a sun-kissed smirker who’d zeroed in on him in less than three minutes.

Jaemin was paying enough scrupulous attention to Mark’s mannerisms that he almost missed Renjun’s nudge to look at the changing rooms. As Yukhei explained where they’d be going for stargazing to Donghyuck and spilled a bunch of other unnecessary details along with it, Jeno slipped out with his trunks and dark tattoo and bare skin.

“He’s pretty,” Jaemin said for only Renjun’s ears, and enjoyed the little hiss of breath he was given in response.

“I’d let him kiss me,” Renjun said plainly, and Jaemin’s heart skidded all the way down to his fingers and wrists.

“Ooh, daring,” Jaemin cooed, and looked to appreciate the hints of a flush on Renjun’s neck. He held his breath. “I’d let both of you kiss me.”

The effect was immediate. He was pushed (jostled, really, because he still had their ankles hooked), the red climbing up into Renjun’s cheeks. “God,” he said. “I’m right here,” he said, which Jaemin assumed translated roughly to “There are three unaffiliated people here why are you doing this to me.”

Jaemin laughed, adrenaline shaking itself into his arms and legs as he watched Renjun’s taped-up hands rise to cover his face. “I can go bother Jeno instead,” he offered just as Yukhei turned and asked with wide puppy eyes, “What am I missing?”

“I flirted with him,” Jaemin said.

“Christ,” Renjun said from behind his hands, leaning back until his spine knocked into the higher bench. Jaemin could only hum in fizzling satisfaction, though he could feel Mark staring at him. It wasn’t like he _wasn’t_ always a flirt with almost anyone who gave him the nonverbal go-ahead, but he reckoned there was a difference. He reckoned if anyone would know that difference, it might be Mark.

He really should have told them.

“I’ll go ask Jeno if he wants to come along,” Jaemin volunteered, and stood up to walk to the pool just as Chenle was making it back from the poolside. Chenle’s feet left dark prints on the pavement, pants cuffed to his knees as carried his shoes back to the bleachers.

“You alright?” he asked, though the question was light enough that it seemed clear that if he was worried before, he wasn’t anymore.

“Mm,” Jaemin assured him. “They just surprised me.”

“Jisung startles easily,” Chenle shared brightly, and Jaemin rather thought Chenle was using it as a comfort. It…worked. Jaemin smiled and passed him for the poolside, switching his attention to tracking Jeno’s movements in the water.

It gave him a sense of deja vu—sitting at one end and watching Jeno swim toward him—except this time, he was pretty sure everyone was feeling pretty okay. Himself included. Out of sight, out of mind.

Jaemin appreciated the differences in this interaction, where he didn’t even have to wiggle his fingers for Jeno. The other boy rose up, brought his hands out, and placed them firmly on Jaemin’s crossed ankles. Jaemin made a complaining noise for the water, and Jeno made an endeared noise right back and yeah. Yeah okay. His heart wasn’t ready for that.

“Mark and Lucas want to go stargazing tonight,” Jaemin said, having nothing his brain supplied him with for a prelude to that statement. “Are you in?”

Jeno blinked at him, then let go with one hand to push away pool water before it slipped right into his crescenting eyes. “The babies can’t come,” he said. “Curfew.”

Jaemin’s mouth opened, but at first no sound came out. Did Jeno call Chenle and Jisung babies all the time? “You don’t?”

“Not if I ask first.” Jeno paused and brought his hand down again, smoothing his thumb against Jaemin’s ankle bone. “Kind of weird for a Thursday night,” he said mildly, and the thumb movement would have been enough to distract the truth out of Jaemin. Almost. Nearly.

“Nothing more romantic than stars on a Thursday night,” Jaemin said instead, and Jeno breathed out a laugh.

“I don’t know about that,” he said, “though anything with you two is pretty romantic to me.”

Thankfully or not, Jisung came up for air on their end of the pool in that moment. His eyes were so shiny and big with his hair slicked down like that. “Hey, Jaemin,” said the dripping teenager, and Jaemin would not be teasing him that his nipples were visible even underwater because that would be mean. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Jaemin confirmed.

“I’ll text my dad when we get out,” Jeno said, unfazed by the interruption, and squeezed gently once before letting go and pushing off the side. “Two more laps, Jisungie?” Jisung nodded without properly managing to even formulate a question concerning what they’d been talking about, and ducked underwater.

Jaemin’s ankles felt cold in Jeno’s absence as he watched them kick off. He wiped at the residue water left behind and stood, feeling the heat of the sun match the heat working from the inside out in his body. He inhaled, patted his chest, exhaled, and moved back to the bleachers.

Renjun greeted him with a cool, sly look, his leg crossed over his knee. “How’s it feel to get a taste of your own medicine?” he asked, though he kept his voice down in light of Chenle so close behind him, on his phone or not.

Jaemin bit his lip, mourning that he’d apparently been obvious. “Did I blush?” he asked, not knowing what else could have possibly given it away.

“You still are,” Renjun said, and then there was a weird lagging moment where it seemed Renjun might move his hand toward him, but then didn’t. The conversation from their friends felt louder in the space between them as Jaemin moved haltingly to sit. 

Renjun turned away.

Jaemin tried to key back into the conversation he’d left.

Mark had finally sat down, but he was acting like every single one of Yukhei’s enthusiastic slaps on his thigh were from the arm of a cactus.

“I used to dance when I was little,” Donghyuck was saying, and Yukhei _slapped_ Mark’s knee like it was a buzzer for his turn to talk.

“You should pick it up again!” Yukhei said, and sometimes Jaemin forgot how loud he was. Donghyuck was smiling, though, so Yukhei’s brand of charm seemed to be up and functioning as always. “Especially if you’re looking for friends. Teamwork makes the—uh, fuckin’—social life work.”

“Oh god,” said Mark.

“Maybe,” said Donghyuck.

“Oh!” Yukhei hit Mark again. It didn’t look like he was in actual physical pain. If Jaemin could read Mark’s face right, it was mostly emotional. “Phone numbers! If you guys can make it, then I’ll need your numbers.”

Jaemin could feel Renjun pause. He was smart. He might ask. Jaemin hoped suddenly, desperately, that he wouldn’t. “Okay,” Renjun said, and Jaemin remembered how to breathe. He would tell Renjun everything, but not now and not in front of the people who’d already heard it. He’d already hurt Mark and Yukhei once with his story, then over and over again since then.

As it was, he couldn’t turn on his phone again. Not since he’d committed to turning it off. If he so much as looked at it, he might crack, and if his mom were as on top of things as she usually was, she’d zero in on his location pinging. Even for a handful of minutes.

When Renjun glanced at him, Jaemin smiled, trying to push gratitude into the action to communicate it silently. Renjun smiled back, and wow. Crushes were difficult to manage.

Chenle sighed loudly, and Jaemin had nearly forgotten he was there. “I guess I’ll live vicariously through Jeno tonight.” He stretched, phone so limp in his raised arms that Jaemin was afraid he’d drop it. “My mom said you guys are crazy.”

“Three exams in one day will do that to you,” Mark muttered, rubbing the spot on his thigh Yukhei had abused.

There was the sopping sound of their two spare boys picking themselves out of the pool, and Jaemin allowed himself the pleasure of watching for Jeno’s arms alone. The echo of his earlier conversation with Renjun pinged through his brain pleasantly because Jesus _Christ_ it would be fun to kiss that boy.

When they were both out, Jisung rocked playfully at the lip of the pool, saying something none of them could hear. Jeno was looking straight in the direction of their little bleacher group, though—specifically and Jaemin and Renjun—so maybe it had something to do with them. Jeno’s fingers went to the drawstring of his trunks to tighten them just as Jisung shoved at his chest with the flat of his palm, and Jaemin watched as the biggest smile crossed Jeno’s face.

Jeno reached out to shove Jisung’s arm gently back, and Jaemin was already snorting as the lanky teen teetered and slipped on the poolside.

The moment’s atmosphere changed in that very moment, though, as Jisung made a little squeak of surprise that carried through the air, foot falling off the edge. It should have been funny. Jisung slipping and falling into the water should have been funny.

It wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeno next~
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	21. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: panic attack, injury
> 
> Please take care. Stop reading if you need to. Your safety always comes first.

Jeno wasn’t necessarily a proud person—he knew how to lose and even preferred it in some cases—but he was admittedly very grateful that by the time either Renjun or Jaemin saw him swim properly, he wasn’t still holding his breath from one end of the pool to the other.

It was difficult. Pretending he wasn’t scared out of his mind _still_ every time he got into the pool. Having Chenle sit with him helped, and knowing Jisung was a good swimmer was a similar boon. He trusted himself and everyone else not to drown.

The first time Jaemin sat at the edge and waited for him, he had the horrible, ridiculous thought that he’d fall in and die just like that. No prelude, no logic. Just drowned instantly like one of his nightmares given an outlet.

He wasn’t about to tell Jaemin and Renjun both to stay away, though.

This second time, he was a lot more prepared. If not because he’d experienced a reasonable and logical sequences of events previously, then definitely because his day was less of a shitstorm of things he couldn’t handle.

He wondered how permissible it was to hold onto the feeling of Jaemin’s ankles in his grip as he swam his last few laps. It was harder to tell where the lines were, now.

Eventually, Jisung heaved himself out of the pool, as disinterested in the ladder as any teen (Jeno included). He fit the soles of his feet on the edge of the pool as he wrung out the water from his trunks, the dribbles making dull sounds against the plastic siding. He looked up through his drenched fringe and eyelashes at Jeno, who was just trying to tighten his drawstring, and smiled. “They’re looking at you.”

“I know,” he said. It was not out of cockiness. He was always trying to steal glances of those two out of his periphery like a dog hoarding bones. He was pleased, though, and nervous. Mostly nervous. Mostly wondering how he looked because he hardly ever knew how to judge his appearance. He relied on his dad’s sense of aesthetics and his little quips of, “Well, I would draw you for free,” which really meant almost nothing. His dad drew him on napkins. There was one of him drooling on the arm of the couch after passing out second year.

He was nervous.

He let himself look over and watch them directly. Earlier, Jaemin had been sitting much closer to Renjun, but their arms were about an thumb’s length or so apart, now. He couldn’t parse a damn thing other than that without his glasses on or his contacts in, though. He just knew that he wanted to be over there with them.

“You should see your face,” Jisung said, smiling. “Hope I don’t look like that. You’re all…” Jisung made a wide gesture, then reached to push against Jeno’s chest with a twiggy slap (it was like getting patted, really). “…_ick.”_

Jeno snorted a laugh, and against his more attentive judgment, pushed back. It wouldn’t have done anything in normal circumstances—Jeno didn’t seek to hurt his loved ones. It was a nudge with intent at best.

But Jisung was on the ledge, the lip slick with water, and Jeno’s vital organs seemed to stop working all at once as Jisung let out a squeak and slipped.

It was so _slow_ from where he stood, locked up like a clay figure as Jisung shin hit the overhang on his way down, face going from wide-eyed to taut. The water rippled and folded, sucking up as one foot angled in, viscous like arms. He could almost feel the slide up his own leg like the cooled-down spittle from an open maw.

Jeno broke, lunging like his spine had been slung out his mouth by the neck, grabbing for Jisung’s elbow before his chin hit the ledge too, but only getting the edge of his wrist.

There was a crack, and then blood, and if he screamed, that would explain the rip in his throat, and he could hear Chenle yelling his name—not Jisung’s, _his—_and something heaved within him like the sticky, burnt soot at the bottom of a pan.

“Get Jisung—_get Jisung. _I got—Jeno. _Jeno—”_

He thought he might vomit right into Chenle’s hands as they gripped his face. Red was flaring in wet droplets behind his eyelids where the sun blazed through in a gnawing clementine. He could hear the sick crack ringing in his ears, a missing puzzle piece in the audio of his mother.

“Jeno. Jen, he’s fine, he’s fine.”

If he was breathing, he couldn’t feel it. The physical rise and fall wasn’t reaching his lungs. He was asphyxiating on panic and the tangy taste of blood in his mouth from who knew where.

“Jeno, open your eyes. _Lee Jeno.”_

Gasping, he only looked because he was being shaken, rattled with Chenle’s voice piercing into his ear. 

He saw everything wallowing in blurs of tears. He didn’t remember when he started to sob.

“His nose is bleeding, Jeno. Maybe it’s broken. He’s fine.”

Masses of flesh-color and tan and a shock of lilac from Chenle’s hair. Nothing blue, nothing red nor pink. He swallowed for breath.

“I don’t—I didn’t—” His throat closed again, he gagged, on the ground, sinking his nails into Chenle’s upper arms.

The crack of bone on pavement.

“Jeno.” Jisung’s voice sounded clogged, but he was so close Jeno could feel his breath on his temple. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m okay. I’m right here. I’m sorry,” he said, him warm ‘m’s turned to ‘b’s like he was a few centuries ill. He was blurry like a smudged photo, but he watched him try to get in Jeno’s line of sight with the first glimpse of red yet.

_“God,”_ Jeno suffocated, reaching for the blur that was Jisung. His thin teenage arm, warm. He knew his grip must hurt but—god there was blood dripping off Jisung’s chin and Jeno just—wiped it with his fingers as he felt himself crumble to ash. “I’m nev-ver swimming ag—I’m not, I can’t, I—”

He felt Chenle yank on him and grip his face so hard it stung. “Jeno, shut _up._ He’s _fine. _Not everyone dies from every accident.”

Everything stilled.

Like the bottom of the pool.

Chenle had peeled off the skin on his chest to let everything slop out in silence, and he was suddenly empty under the sun and his own twisting heartbeat.

Stunned, Jeno sat looking into Chenle’s eyes as they burned an angry, afraid brown.

He could feel the tiniest memory of a kiss in that moment right where Chenle pushed his thumb into his skin. Right over his mole where his mom would send him off with a goodbye. Just a whisper. Not quite a farewell this time.

Just a whisper.

“Look,” Jisung said, and Jeno swallowed, aching, wanting to bleed out his mouth, but he looked as Chenle let go of his face. Jisung was sitting at an angle to him, pointing to his shin where there was an angry red mark. He wiped at his nose next, wincing indelicately, a deep red smearing even as pink ran down his chest. “I’m okay. Conscious, too.” Jisung laughed thickly, and Jeno saw tears in his eyes, though he wasn’t sure for which reason. “I’ll live through the next accident, too, Jen,” he said.

Jeno’s throat wheezed out a compulsive response. “You can’t promise that.”

Jisung hummed and opened his arms for him, and Jeno lurched into him without even thinking. Wiry, friend, tall but tiny Jisung.

He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t be able to survive something like his mom happening again. He could feel the rip inside his ribcage where even this happened. The raw edges fluttering and wet. He wasn’t good at losing people even casually. Something—an everything—turned into nothing was agony.

“I’m sorry for saying that,” he heard Chenle say. Could feel his hand smooth gently over his knee in a plea for forgiveness. Even as he’d told the truth. “But it’s not so bad. It won’t always be so bad.”

Jeno swallowed and croaked an “I know” just as he finally managed to tug himself out of the tiny bubble they’d created.

No one had left.

He was not surprised.

* * *

By the time he had showered and changed, he was exhausted, a tiny ring of pain pinging around inside his head and staying in beat with his footsteps against the changing room tiles. 

Moving felt like he was turning his body through thin, tissue sheets of grey, crinkling and compressing under his feet, his fingertips, the world swaying as phantom noises wandered back into his head only for him to swipe them away.

Instead, he clung to Chenle’s words. They were neutral, truly, even as they circled the outer linings of his lungs and squeezed them. “Not every accident ends in death,” he murmured to himself as he zipped up his backpack and sighed.

Chenle had taken Jisung to see if the school nurse was still in, which meant that he was alone with his fear.

He hadn’t…said anything to any of them when he left the poolside. Fear clogged his chest too deeply once he’d gathered the pieces of himself he’d scattered. What could he say? Should he apologize?

Jeno paused at the door out, sucking in a breath, trying to steady himself.

If he waited long enough, would they just leave?

He felt exhaustion pull at the shirt on his back, the same darkness of lying his head in his arms and locking everything out.

There was the tiniest squeeze of light out of the dingy, fluorescent light-lit changing room if he looked at the crack under the door. Steeling himself, he let his hand settle on the cool doorknob. Small steps, his dad would tell him.

Before he even attempted to turn it, the door swung inward and hit him in the nose.

Karma.

“Fuck—”

“Jeno, oh my god. I’m so sorry! You were taking so long and—and did you just say the fuck word?”

A laugh tumbled out of Jeno’s chest earlier than he’d been prepared for it, and he held his nose while Jaemin came in right up close, fingers reaching to pry his hands away.

“I didn’t know you swore,” Jaemin said, voice gentle and sweet as he checked his nose, fingertips warm against his skin. “No blood. Good.”

“You didn’t break it,” Jeno assured him, tracing the pretty fringe of Jaemin’s eyelashes with his attention while he could. Even as his nose twinged numbly under Jaemin’s brief touch. It was mostly lucky he was wearing his contacts rather than his his glasses, because Jaemin could have very well broken those instead of his nose like that.

“The nurse would probably kill us if you did. She’s probably supposed to go home soon,” Jaemin murmured, and Jeno didn’t realize he was holding his hand until he was leading him out the door. He barely managed to switch off the lights in the changing room before the door closed on his wrist. “They’re still gone, so she must have been in,” he explained.

He was still wondering how Jaemin could be so bold as to hold his hand with no prelude (warmth was slinking up his arm like a kitten) when he saw Renjun up on the bleachers spring off the metal and stride over. Boy was on a mission. Jeno felt a tiny lick of wonder instead of terror, threatened more by how much he liked Renjun’s scrunched brows.

When Renjun stopped just short of half a foot from them both, Jeno remembered belatedly that he’d just had a major panic attack. He felt kind of laggy, taking in Renjun’s concerned expression and narrow features.

“Can I hug you?” Renjun asked, voice almost too firm to pull off making it sound like a question. Surprise trickled through his skin in little bubbly pinpricks—something bordering on butterfly kisses.

“You, uh—” For a moment, he tripped over the many walls he’d set up over the years. Renjun wasn’t for touching, for looking at, for liking. And then he snagged from the upper shelves of his mind: was he going to say_ no?_ “Yeah,” he breathed, dropping his backpack from his shoulder to the pavement, and a hug from Renjun was exactly what he expected a Renjun hug to be.

He knocked into him, arms slipping under his and holding him firm like he was a sack of rice. Jeno didn’t let go of Jaemin’s hand even as he could feel him try to slip away, but he wasn’t about to stand there without returning Renjun’s gesture. With his free arm, he hooked over Renjun’s shoulder and held him close. He almost startled at Renjun easing into it enough for his mouth to rest against his shoulder, and Jeno resisted the urge to nestle into the crook of his neck or press his nose into his hair.

He squeezed Jaemin’s hand, feeling two beats from Renjun’s heart through his chest before he was released.

“Are you okay?” Renjun asked, truly a questioning tone this time.

Jeno sucked in a breath, endeared, somehow, over Renjun not giving him time to process that he’d just embraced him. It wasn’t either of their faults for not knowing how they cut his heart free and let it float if they so much as smiled at him. 

Words tangled in his throat. He wanted to say something sweet, or clever, but all he could do without buffering for three minutes straight was nod.

Over Renjun’s narrow shoulder were the other three—Mark, Yukhei, Donghyuck—involved with each other. Maybe consciously extending some privacy. Yukhei was laughing and elbowed Mark hard enough to make the boy buckle, at which point Donghyuck joined in on the humor.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno said, pulling his gaze away from them and back down to Renjun, then over to Jaemin, “if I scared you.” The moment had slid through his fingers. He’d screamed, he knew. He’d been a wreck and panicking over something scary, but minor, and these two didn’t know anything yet. He wasn’t sure how they might have interpreted the events.

He wasn’t sure, either, if Chenle or Jisung had said anything—for which he wouldn’t blame them if they had.

Renjun exhaled heavily as Jaemin squeezed his hand. “Apology accepted,” Renjun said smoothly, and Jeno just barely managed not to startle when he reached out to straighten the hem of his shirt. From his current angle, all Jeno wanted to do was graze the bridge of his nose with his finger.

He shook himself minutely, tentatively offering his hand for Renjun if he wanted it. He’d held his hand once just an hour ago—wanted it again, now. “Wait—” he faltered when Renjun went for it, nearly forgetting his backpack. He reached down, tugging Jaemin in from the angle, and just as he gripped its strap, he heard an unmistakable sound of indigence.

“What?” he asked, looking up and bewildered as he tried to finagle his backpack onto his shoulder. Renjun looked disgruntled. Jaemin, on the other hand, was pressing his mouth thin around a suppressed smile.

“Jaemin kissed me on the cheek,” Renjun said, and rapidly turned an angry pink just saying it out loud. Jeno remembered Renjun’s skin against his lips. He’d been warm and soft and it had haunted him, the moment laying on his tongue like a mouthful of sweet pepper jelly.

“I missed it,” he said softly, unnecessarily, as a bird flitted over the sun. He would have liked to see it—the tip of Jaemin’s nose pressing into Renjun’s cheekbone, he imagined. It was overwhelming, but sometimes he thought he could be happy just seeing Renjun and Jaemin falling for each other without him.

“I can do it again,” Jaemin said, cheeky, and Renjun somehow made a high-pitched whistling noise come out of his throat. Jeno grabbed Renjun’s hand before he combusted on the spot, and Renjun’s fingers curled into his like iron under heat.

Renjun didn’t even get a chance to respond before Chenle’s voice was bellowing out for the whole world to hear. _“It’s just a minor fracture!”_ his voice sang, and he tugged along a toweled-and-trunked-but-otherwise-mostly-naked Jisung through the pool area gate. Jisung’s big hand was holding a bulk of an ice pack against his face, just a hint of his embarrassed mouth underneath. Jeno winced for his sake.

There was a little bout of applause from Yukhei on the bleachers, and Jeno was becoming increasingly aware why he was Jaemin’s friend. Positivity, optimism.

Jisung, on the other hand, thrived under Chenle’s kind of sunshine, which unlike Yukhei’s support, didn’t make him shrivel up like a tiny bean into the nearest person. Chenle laughed, and it carried like crystal like always as Jisung crowded into his space to avoid Yukhei’s spotlight.

“C’mon then,” Jaemin said, kisses forgotten, but not their hands, and Jeno felt a little like a toddler chain. Or a billboard for polyamory as Jaemin tugged them back to the group.

Renjun trailed and squeezed hard on Jeno’s fingers to draw his attention. “Relieved?” He was back to his normal color, but the irises of his eyes were like deep sand as the sun struck through them just right. Jeno wanted to pause every moment. Stand there and bask and memorize every detail so he wouldn’t lose anything. Jaemin’s thin fingers tangled in his like a determined knot, the wisp of Renjun’s forelock kissing the space between his eyes, the sky yawning huge above their heads.

“Mm,” Jeno confirmed, still buffering for the words to speak. _Tell him he’s beautiful._

“But still shaken?” Renjun pressed, and Jeno simply nodded. He wanted to rewind back to the hug and dissolve into it, burst into bubbles like seltzer. 

Jaemin let go of his hand as they reached the bleachers, climbing up and over the seats to steal his backpack from Yukhei. They exchanged words, and Jeno could feel Donghyuck’s eyes on Renjun, trying to parse when he could interrupt.

“Donghyuck and I are going to try to come tonight, we think,” Renjun said, and let go of Jeno slowly. “After—do you…Are you coming?”

Jeno struggled with his empty hands, felt buffeted suddenly when Chenle and Jisung encroached on the moment. Renjun distanced himself as he climbed the stands. “I would like to,” Jeno said, and allowed Jisung to latch onto his shirt like the talons of a little bird. Renjun smiled, but then Jeno had to break himself out of the spell of just _looking_ at Renjun freely. He had to pay attention to Chenle and Jisung. He had to confirm Jisung was okay.

Jisung pressed his lips to the seam at the shoulder of Jeno’s t-shirt. “It hurts,” he complained as soon as Jeno looked away, and Jeno reached to brush his fingers through the damp, chlorinated fringe of Jisung’s hair.

“You need to shower,” he told him, at a loss for what words he needed to say. His throat was beginning to close again even while Chenle slid his arms around his waist.

“Don’t slip on the wet tile,” said Chenle, teasing, a glint in his eyes like a firefly.

Jisung made a complaining noise, but detached himself from Jeno, automatically giving the poolside a wide berth as he walked over. Not for himself, most likely, but for Jeno. He watched him go, wanting to cling onto him for every step and make sure nothing absurd happened. That nothing fell from the sky, none of the pool water slopped over and sucked him up, nothing nightmarish.

Chenle sighed and scrunched Jeno’s waist in his arms, making his lungs hitch. “Do you need to call your dad?” He stared up into Jeno’s face as Jeno felt his shock crack open again by a hairline fracture. There was heat in his throat where it refused to open. “Yeah,” Chenle murmured. “Yeah, c’mon. Let’s call your dad.”

“Okay,” Jeno croaked, and let Chenle push him toward the gate.

“We’ll be back!” Chenle called over his shoulder, and Jaemin responded back with an _okay! _as he was tussled by Yukhei’s big hands for seemingly no reason at all.

It was Chenle who pulled his phone out of his backpack. Perhaps because Jeno was already phasing out by the time they reached the steel entranceway.

“We’ll just stay here, okay?” Chenle murmured, and Jeno tried to pay attention to all of the things he was doing for him. Lying his backpack on the ground at his feet, pulling at his thumb so his phone would unlock, opening the phone app.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno said, but he didn’t sound like himself. Too thin.

“That you have a massive trauma you’re doing your best to get over?” Chenle scrolled to Jeno’s dad’s contact, words calm, and he only looked up again when he’d hit call and handed over the phone. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

The audio only rang twice, the sound dim as Jeno held the device down in his palm. He was trying to swallow through the pain in his throat, and Chenle was looking so warmly at him.

_“Jeno?”_

Chenle patted his arm and slipped away toward the bleachers, and Jeno brought the phone to his ear. He breathed out once, heavy, hard, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

_“Jeno, hello? Is everything okay?”_

His dad always picked up, somehow. Always.

“Dad,” Jeno barely managed to whisper, and then broke down in tears. He sunk down the steel bar of the entrance, trying to suck in breaths as his dad just _said_ things on the other side. Kind, worried, so worried, his best friend, his dad.

_“Oh, oh Jeno. Jeno, it’s okay,” _he said, not even knowing what it was, his voice audibly pressed close to his phone. _“If it’s not okay, it will be. Deep breaths, little one.”_

There was no way he could get words out, just pressing his palm to his mouth as he choked on tears. Not knowing for sure, not having the capacity to care if his boys saw him.

_“You’ve been doing so well. I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud. Deep breaths with me, Jeno.” _He could hear his dad rapidly type something and then sink with a creak into his chair, pushing everything away. His dad. Always making time. Always anything for him if he needed it. 

Jeno tried to breathe with him. _“That’s good. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here. It’s okay.”_

“I th-thought—” He fought for breath, all the world a blur, and dug his nails into the bruises of his other hand.

_“Take your time. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”_

Jeno pressed his face into his knees and let himself sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was...well. These things are never easy to write. Look up something happy for me after this if you need to, 'kay? ;;
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	22. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone ;; I'm sorry for taking so long. Something happened in my family that made it really difficult for me to write for a while there, and I've been trying to adjust to everything since. I've felt a _lot_ better this last week, but it took me a second to get my sea legs with BAS again. I'm grateful for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this update very much! ♡

Renjun wasn’t faced with many situations like this one—he wasn’t sure how badly or well he could comfort someone crying. The women in his family didn’t cry, and he’d only seen his dad tear up after getting smacked in the face with a cutting board. Donghyuck had only cried once when he’d broken the news he’d be moving—all the times he’d cried as a kid didn’t count.

Historically, Renjun was the one who had all the tears.

On top of that, he honestly hadn’t ever witnessed a breakdown of Jeno’s scale. The shock of having such a placid person absolutely lose it over a slip…The accident had been scary. Renjun could admit that. Jisung had fallen down and over, and the flash of blood had been enough to make Renjun gasp. But Chenle had then called for Jeno first. Not Jisung. Which Renjun would have never been able to predict given what he’d observed until that point.

From there, Jeno had all of his attention. The scream, the panic-stricken and distraught sobbing had been so unexpected that Renjun had felt entirely detached from himself even as he had helped Yukhei pull Jisung’s disoriented, frantic limbs from the pool. Jisung had immediately scrambled his way over, and Renjun wasn’t stupid. It was like they knew it would affect Jeno more for Jisung to break his nose than it would Jisung himself.

Past the initial alarm, Renjun manhandled himself into a headspace that was entirely inhabited by essential reminders. Seeing Chenle grab Jeno’s face had a part of him lurching in protest to be _gentle _despite knowing Jeno for less than two weeks. He had judged what he could hear of Chenle’s words and even Jisung’s, and had to remind himself that he’d only known Jeno for less than _two weeks. _It wasn’t his place to think their approach was wrong or too harsh. It wasn’t his place to want to intrude and to hold Jeno. And it absolutely wasn’t acceptable for his shock to turn into feelings of “not knowing him.” Of course he didn’t. How much had he told either of them to warrant knowing something that scaled as big as this? 

He knew relationships weren’t equal deals—he didn’t hypothetically have to share all of his troubles just to get one trauma from Jeno—but relationships also took time. At two weeks, he was sure he wanted to try, and Jeno’s breakdown wouldn’t change that. He wasn’t more intrigued or enamored to see Jeno had shattered edges, nor was he daunted. Jeno was Jeno, and Renjun liked him, and that was that.

Still, he slipped in when he could and felt better for the hug he squeezed out of that boy. He’d felt so firm in his arms, so far from fragile and so warm.  Jeno had a funny way about him, Renjun was figuring. He walked the same and moved the same no matter what state he was in, but he wore pain out on his skin strongly enough to feel. Renjun couldn’t remember the last time he was so intent on being so aware of another person and so deliberately intent on understanding the emotions they displayed; now, he was doing it twice over. He could almost feel the hurt Jeno was pushing through, and was grateful Jaemin seemed to be temporarily resting out of his mire.

Renjun was still trying to figure out where he fit between them, but he felt he knew he could fill in their gaps when they were falling apart. They seemed to want to do the same for him, and he could return that favor with interest. He felt sure of that capability.

And they also seemed to want to see him smile with suffering as a close cousin. He could still feel the burn of Jaemin’s dry lips against his cheek, the blush that had flooded his face, the wish scrunched into Jeno’s expression. His instinct had been to complain, and the sheer sunshine Jaemin had let off from his tight smile had filled Renjun with tiny butterflies.

Now, as Chenle walked back to the group, Renjun could see Jeno sink to the ground at the fence entrance. He looked small on the ground—had looked like a _boy_ both times rather than a teen growing just right into his bone structure—and the beginning of tears shuddered through his body there into his knees.

Chenle only gave a firm nod when he reached them and a small smile, then said, “Anyone have one of those tissue packs on them?”

Renjun cut out his own niggling urge to protest before he could even think on it—he would think, ordinarily, that Jeno wouldn’t want to be left alone, but his hunches had nothing on Chenle. His impression was that they’d been friends for years, now, and whatever Chenle knew far outpaced his own.

“He’s calling his dad,” Chenle said mildly as Mark wrestled a pack out of his bag. He accepted the offering wrapped in lilac and yellow plastic, and given the glance he flicked to Renjun and Jaemin, Renjun reckoned he might have said that for them alone.

He’d never once heard of Jeno’s mother being mentioned.

Chenle hopped off the bleachers and Renjun leaned forward, fiddling with the tape around his fingers as one of them was losing grip. “Did mom reply, Hyuck?” He’d chosen to sit next to Jaemin instead of Donghyuck, and their composition was more a scramble than predictable. He wondered, vaguely, if Donghyuck was trying not to crowd him out of his time with his boys by crowding in with Jaemin’s instead. He didn’t have a problem with it—given what had just happened, he was grateful.

Donghyuck flipped through to his chat app, rubbing at his bottom lip with his forefinger. They’d agreed that Donghyuck should ask. Chances of a successful getaway were higher like this, though Renjun knew his mother would suspect him for deliberating. It was just the best way to do things, though—it would be easy for her to say no to her son, to whom she said no all the time, but Donghyuck was only her pseudo-son who she may only see once or twice a year going forward. He had power in this setup as both a beloved guest and a rarity.

And yet, seeing Donghyuck smile against his finger felt more foreboding than promising. “She asked how many blonds will be going.”

Renjun sucked in a breath so harsh he almost coughed, stomach cramping in duress. “God forbid—” He made a strangled noise and breathed out against the sky. “—she let that die. I fucking—”

“What?” Jaemin asked, curiosity and amusement twined into his voice, and Renjun almost jolted right out of his skin when he set his hand on his knee. One would think he’d be desensitized to that touch in particular by now.

_“One,” _Renjun hissed, ignoring Jaemin. “Just Jeno.”

Donghyuck laughed into his fingers and texted back a response in the midst of saying the worst thing ever. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Renjun griped even as Yukhei was already leaning in like he was on the cusp of learning a conspiracy.

Jaemin’s thumb moved in what could have been a soothing gesture or something entirely subconscious, but either way it made Renjun’s skin prickle. “Do you have a thing against blonds?” Jaemin prodded. Renjun could almost _feel_ Jaemin cast a glance toward Jeno. Chenle had just handed him the tissues and was now making his way to the changing rooms. Jeno’s hand looked to be shaking as he wrestled a tissue out, pack stuck between his knees as he held his phone with his other hand.

Before Renjun could open his mouth, Donghyuck jumped in, eyes glittering wickedly under the sunlight. “He has a thing _for_ blonds.”

“That’s slander!” Renjun blurted, wrenched back into the present moment and barely biting back what could have been a yell. “I liked _one_ blond and Jeno just happens to be blond now but he was—” Renjun closed his mouth with a harsh click of his teeth, inhaling hard through his nose and fighting a blush.

“The blond looks good on him,” Yukhei said brightly. “It’s okay to like blonds.”

“It’s definitely not something to be embarrassed about,” Donghyuck goaded.

“He was what?” Jaemin asked, his grin somewhat sharp.

Renjun flushed furiously before he could even get the words out, feeling distinctly bombarded. “I liked him with black hair first so this is—”

“I’m fine then?” Jaemin said, cheeky once again, and Renjun wanted to _die._

“Not baiting me like this you’re not,” Renjun snipped, and Jaemin started to laugh in such a glaringly genuine fashion that Renjun could have sworn it launched his heart up his throat upon contact with his ears. He did this scrunch thing around his eyes and between his eyebrows when he laughed like that, and his brain was aborting all temporary thought.

He could feel Yukhei beaming from half a bench away where Mark had his eyebrows knitted like he was encountering a conundrum, and Jaemin’s fingers were pinching the muscle of Renjun’s thigh, and his skin stung warmer than a sunburn under the hot summer light. Renjun didn’t know what to do with his body except let it slowly go up in smoke (except his heart was fluttering, and Jaemin looked pretty like this, and his hand was warm).

“She said if there’s really only one blond, we can go,” Donghyuck said, looking down at his phone. “But, and I quote, ‘I have to keep an eye on you.’”

Renjun covered his face for the pain, the embarrassment, the blush. “What am I gonna do? Die?”

“No dying on our stargazing trip,” Yukhei said firmly, and there was the sweetest giggle hidden in his voice.

“It’s bad luck for your assessment,” Mark said, jumping in for the first time in a while, and Renjun peeked over his fingertips just to witness Donghyuck wrestle with an unknown expression as he stared at the boy. Maybe Mark’s conundrum had been Donghyuck. It was certainly Renjun’s.

He let out his breath, then allowed his hands to fall and capture Jaemin’s in an awkward lace. Assessments. Right.

Jaemin squeezed his hand, and Renjun tried to relax.

* * *

Eventually, Jeno unfurled from his position at the fence, phone resting against his thigh. Chenle and Jisung had regrouped with the rest of them, Jisung participating in twenty-questions about his fracture with Yukhei, and Donghyuck had hopped over to sit with Renjun and Jaemin instead.

Renjun still had Jaemin’s dry hand locked in his, fixating on the way Jaemin’s thumb seemed to idle across his knuckles sometimes as he bent over Donghyuck’s phone and looked at pictures of Michigan. But Jeno, too, was somewhat of a fixation, and had diverted him by unfurling alone. 

He reached across the bench that separated him from Chenle and nudged his calf, jerking his chin over to where Jeno sat.

Chenle pursed his lips as he took Jeno in, then smiled before popping back off the bleachers like the metal was too hot to sit on for longer than five minutes.

None of the conversations stopped, lulling over them as Mark wondered how long Jisung’s nose would take to heal. Jaemin commented on a sunset picture and asked if Donghyuck had visited a Great Lake yet. Renjun let himself watch the exchange between Chenle and Jeno, seeing how he picked himself up off the ground like the tears had taken everything out of him. Took in the full, spaceless hug they gave each other and the way Jeno slumped into Chenle’s narrow shoulder for comfort.

Was it terrible that in the midst of this, Renjun badly wanted to know what it was like to cuddle Jeno? It felt inappropriate.

He rubbed his free palm on his pants as they made their way over and smiled at Jeno when he glanced up. Unlike the last time he’d been sad and a little shattered, he gave a little smile back without pausing, and relief filled Renjun’s chest until he thought maybe he couldn’t breathe around it.

Jeno made his way over and leaned his hand into the bleacher seat Renjun was sitting on with the other two. “My dad said I can go, but I’m going to head home with Chenle and Jisung. I need—” He gave a shaky, but endearing smile. “—a breather.” Jaemin was already paying attention, but Jeno reached out to nudge his knee with his knuckles anyway. “Let me know when I should be ready to be picked up?” For a moment, he looked nervous in the flick of his eyes to Mark and Yukhei. “Are they okay being the drivers? I can help pay for gas.”

“Jeno,” Jaemin said, voice tinged with disbelief. “We’re not driving to Oklahoma.”

Donghyuck snorted with a smile and Jeno let out a sheepish breath. “I just—”

Jaemin waved his hand to cut him off, then made a shooing motion. “Go home, rich boy. Be happy, be safe. We’ll see you soon.”

The hiss of breath Jeno gave would have worried Renjun if he wasn’t looking at them like _that. _Like he was fond and reluctant and maybe already a little happier.

As he nodded and turned away, Renjun had to bite his tongue and let him leave without another word. No more flirting. No more. He was playing with the fire eating at his nerves, and he could bear to have some patience. To not rush out with all his feelings at once just because a cute boy looked at them like they made him happy.

Renjun scratched at the fabric of his pants, worrying the hem with his fingers.

“Your crush is showing,” Donghyuck scoffed, and Jaemin made a soft noise like a coo. 

Renjun buried his head in his arms to stifle the embarrassment. “Shut up.”

* * *

They ended up parting ways not long after Jeno and company—Jaemin with his two boys and Renjun with Donghyuck. 

The sky had scudded itself with clouds by the time they left, though the sun still was slow and intent on their skin. They weren’t ones to burn, but in retrospect, they really should have put sunscreen on while they were out at the pool.

“Maybe I’m naive,” Donghyuck mused as he rolled up his short sleeves so they hugged his shoulders, “but I’ve never seen anyone as whipped as you two.”

Renjun cringed, then laughed, then found himself cringing again and wishing the sidewalk was broader. “Well—”

“It seems to be mutual though?” Donghyuck went on, looking at Renjun and pinning him to the moment. Renjun just caught himself before tripping over the lawn fringe of the verge.

“That’s good?” Renjun said, righting himself and—god, talking about this out loud was hard—fidgeting with his backpack’s strap adjusters. 

Donghyuck rolled his eyes at him and laughed, then settled into a frown as they walked down the slope of the hill leading down to his house. They’d see the park first up ahead, then turn right and go straight up another hill. The landscape’s only virtue was how nice it was for cycling. “Is Jeno okay?”

The question was more weighted than Donghyuck would know. He hadn’t had a chance to tell him about the band room incident and what Sarwendah had said—it had been difficult to know what to say with so few definites.

Renjun took in a long, careful breath. “Yes.” He hadn’t known him for long enough to compare how he was now to anything else, but he had Chenle and Jeno’s words to lean into. “He…Generally-speaking, I think he is. He was down last week, too, but was honest about saying he wasn’t doing as well?” He looked over to Donghyuck to see how he was processing these details. 

Donghyuck picked at the nail of his thumb where the navy paint was chipping. “He has a—” he waved his hand vaguely, then shrugged. “—very unproblematic way of being upset, it seems like.” Donghyuck’s lips twisted, though, and he gave him a pointed look. “Unless he never tells you anything?”

And this was the thing Renjun seemingly had to remind himself of every day, if not multiple times a day. “It’s been two weeks,” he said. “He said he will, and if he doesn’t, then there are other things I’ll have to watch out for, won’t I?”

There was a part of him that was afraid to know what it was that was going on—not because he thought it would necessarily reduce his opinion of Jeno, but because it seemed like it might actually hurt. Jaemin, too, for that matter.

What secrets did he, himself have? That he had anger issues and wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he started college? That he painted to relieve stress? At sixteen, it seemed almost unfathomable to him that anything too terrible could happen in such a short lifespan. Jaemin…Jaemin was another matter. If Renjun was correct, he had no idea what he would do. Be fruitlessly angry and cry about it?

Probably.

Donghyuck offered his hand across the minimal space between them. “Are you stressed about it?”

Renjun took it and laced their fingers together. “A little.”

* * *

While Renjun rushed through his homework assignments (thankfully not many and not too demanding), Donghyuck helped his mother put together a shelf from IKEA they had lying around for god knows how long. He was positive his mom was trying to keep Donghyuck busy while Renjun was working for at least one of their sakes—either knowing Renjun didn’t get much work done when it came to homework with Donghyuck in the room or knowing that Donghyuck enjoyed (though didn’t need) being occupied.

She fed them before they left, too, and they caught Ruolan coming in right as they were putting on their shoes.

“You’re going out?” she asked with the tinge of disbelief Renjun expected but still made him prickle.

“I can be social,” he defended, yanking on his shoelaces. Donghyuck snorted and she bent to ruffle his brown waves like he was her little brother and not Renjun sitting one foot away.

She made an amused, but vaguely-derisive-in-a-sisterly-way expression, then said, “Those boys make you an entirely different monster.”

For the sake of it—and only for the sake of it—Renjun snarled at her, then slouched as he switched to his other shoe. “Leave me alone.” He wasn’t truly put-out (or even remotely), but she eased up anyway, knocking his hip with the tip of her slipper.

“Have fun, yeah?” She then twitched Donghyuck’s ear with her finger. “Don’t let him fourth-wheel you.”

Donghyuck laughed properly this time, then pushed himself to his feet as Renjun completed his second bow. “I missed being around him just as much. I don’t mind.”

It was a flattering confession, but it did remind him that Donghyuck wouldn’t be here indefinitely—he only had so much time to breathe the same air as him. They’d once talked about going to the same university. He wondered if that was still on the table.

Ruolan gave one more tease before releasing them from her sisterly shackles as Renjun’s phone vibrated. The sun was low when they slipped out the door, and the sky wasn’t perfectly clear, but still had wide swathes of open sky the color of a watered-down blue. The moon was pale and visible like a god’s leftover nail-clipping, and at this time, right before five o’clock, everything was quiet.

Halfway down the front walk, Jaemin leaned out the passenger window and propped his elbows on the roof of the car to wave. Sometime between zero period and second, Jaemin had put makeup on, but whatever he’d done now wasn’t the same look.

“Good evening!” he chirped against cerulean car paint, and smiled so brightly Renjun thought he might be dwarfed by nerves and embarrassment before he even got into the car.

“Evening, Jaemin,” Donghyuck said for the both of them, and opened the door closest to scoot across. “Hi Mark,” he said, as well, and Renjun almost cursed himself out loud because he forgot to ask what the _fuck_ was up. Even the way he said his _name_ was charged.

“Right,” Mark said in return, and there was a flash of something uncomfortable in the way he drummed his fingers against the wheel. Renjun caught Donghyuck smirk and shoved his knee as Jaemin slid back into his seat and secured his seatbelt. In the rearview mirror, it seemed he’d gone for a smokier eye. “It’s a twenty-minute drive if we don’t hit traffic,” he said, and Renjun wanted to laugh for his determination, for Donghyuck being impossible, for Jaemin’s smoky-eye that made Renjun want to fiddle with something or die.

“Jeno’s with Yukhei?” Renjun asked, and then paused as Mark pulled away from the curb. “Is this Taylor Swift?”

“I dunno,” Mark said. “Is it? Also yes. He lives pretty close, turns out.”

“Radio’s broken,” Jaemin offered as explanation for the distinctly Taylor-Swiftian melody coming quietly out of the console. “He has CDs, though.” God, Jaemin was beautiful—arm hooked over the back of his seat to look right fucking at Renjun.

“Um,” said Mark. “Sit forward.”

Jaemin obeyed with a smile, and Renjun had absolutely no words. He saw him less than an hour ago, didn’t he? What was different now?

“What kind of het white boy music do you listen to, Mark? Country?”

The car jolted to a stop so fast everyone lurched, and suddenly Jaemin was practically dissolving into a coughing fit of laughter over his knees while Mark sat frozen in the middle of the residential street. Donghyuck was practically vibrating with the words he’d just said.

Mark turned. “I’m gay.” He was staring at Donghyuck like nothing Renjun had ever seen. Like horror, disdain, fierce injury all in these wide, dark eyes and pinched eyebrows.

Donghyuck’s mouth was pressed thin over a trembling grin, and then he snorted, hands flying to his mouth, and there were two giggling boys in a car where Renjun was shocked on the other spectrum from Mark (Jaemin’s laugh was so cute like this but holy shit. How could Donghyuck just _say_ that—).

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck said, mirth clogging his throat. “You seemed like such a crippled straight boy.”

“Holy shit,” Mark said. “This is the worst day of my life.”

Finally, Renjun burst out a laugh, then slapped a hand over his mouth in horror, then choked on another laugh again. Mark sat forward, seemingly dazed, and slid his hands over the faux leather of the wheel.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck said again as Jaemin’s laughter died out. Jaemin tilted his head back against the head rest, carefully touching his eyes for the tears he'd just shed. “Mark, what music do you listen to?”

Mark let out a slow, shaky breath, and eased off the break pedal. “Alt rock.” He hesitated as they hit the stop sign out of their block. “And rap.”

Jaemin twisted in his seat for just a moment, laughter still tight in his eyes and mouth, and said, “Donghyuck, I love you.”

What had been massive hubris in Donghyuck’s face suddenly turned blushy, and Renjun’s heart jumped to his throat because—well, because…

“Don’t say that,” Donghyuck said, pushing himself into the corner of the back seat. “Renjun’s right here.”

Jaemin beamed at Donghyuck for a second, then looked at Renjun with so many stars in his eyes, he wasn’t sure why they were driving twenty minutes out to watch the sky. “It’s different,” he told Renjun, fingers tight around the seat corner. Mark reached out to nudge Jaemin as a reminder to sit forward. Renjun felt paralyzed. “We’ll get there,” he said, still smiling so big, and all Renjun could think to do was breathe out and nod.

Finally, Jaemin sat forward again, the corner of his lip still visible and quirking cutely, and Renjun wondered how on earth he could have already fallen so far.

Renjun wouldn’t know—he’d never been in love before—but he’d already gotten _somewhere_ and it was a fight just to not burst into steam and little Renjun bits just _sitting_ near either one of his love interests.

Renjun met Jaemin’s eyes in the rearview mirror, felt his lungs and heart clench around the smile he found himself wearing without thinking, then looked away. He didn’t think he was there yet, but he couldn’t believe it would take long. Not at this rate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, Mark. I am so sorry.
> 
> (forgive any typos/errors—I didn't edit the last scene much)
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	23. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a pretty heavy part of this chapter. I, admittedly, cried openly for the first time while I wrote it (which hasn't happened with BAS yet for me until now). Please read carefully and pull away if you need to.
> 
> tw: panic attack, implied suicidal ideation
> 
> The ending scene of the chapter is lighter again, so feel free to skip forward if you need to.

Jaemin had neglected to ask where exactly they were going, but Mark didn’t seem to know either as soon as they exited the freeway. They pulled over for a good three minutes so Mark could set up the GPS on his phone and hand over the role of giving directions to Jaemin. He’d done that before—liked doing it, and within those three minutes as well, Donghyuck convinced Mark to put in one of his burned CDs.

The music was kept low so Jaemin could point out turns. Eventually, Renjun asked how Jaemin had met mark, in theme with the record.

“Um,” Mark said after a turn, and cast a quick glance at Jaemin, “we met through our moms. His thought I would be a good influence.” Jaemin could see Mark’s discomfort in the drum of his fingers on the wheel as they hit a light.

“Are you?” Donghyuck asked—certainly not to Jaemin’s surprise.

Mark’s expression curled into a crossroad of hurt, bitterness, and anger; it was a familiar enough sight for Jaemin, and it made him anxious to comfort him in some way despite the fact that he was driving. 

Mark swallowed like he was holding back words, opened his mouth, and Jaemin answered for him. “Yes,” Jaemin said, “definitely.”

In response, Mark’s mouth drew down, shy and uneasy, and Jaemin felt sorry for his fidgeting hands. “My mom,” Mark said, “likes Jaemin a lot. She wants him to keep coming over even after I’m gone.” He said those words like they would make up for something, and Jaemin, who had never heard this yet, felt warmed twofold.

Jaemin looked down at the Mark’s phone in his hands. “That’s cute. Left at the next light,” he said, and flicked down the notification banner from Yukhei. “Xuxi says they’ll be later than us.”

He could feel Donghyuck’s hands press up against the back of his seat as he looked over his shoulder. “Who’s Xuxi?”

“How come?” asked Mark.

“Yukhei, Lucas, Xuxi—same person,” said Renjun.

“They did a pitstop to pick up junk food,” Jaemin read.

“Are they still there?” asked Donghyuck.

“Um, just a sec.” 

“Ask him to pick up ice cream,” said Mark.

“What flavor?” asked Donghyuck.

“Cookies and cream,” Jaemin said, if only because he’d run this gamut before. “I’m asking for donut holes, too.” Mark made a sound of surprise like _‘oh, duh.’ _“Anyone have a preference for donut holes?”

“Glazed,” Renjun piped up.

“Oh, wait—turn right!”

“What?” 

“Turn _right,_ Mark!”

Jaemin swore his life flashed before his eyes when Mark yanked the wheel so hard he had to catch himself against the door. In the back seat, Donghyuck was jerked up against Renjun, who gave a squeak of terror. A horn honked like a dying train as they swerved into a a new street. 

They hadn’t crashed, and neither had they missed their turn.

Jaemin stared at Mark, who was rigid, looking frazzled as his knuckles turned green from gripping the wheel. They coasted along the new street, blessedly sparse. “Holy shit.”

“Oh my god,” Donghyuck chirped from the back seat.

“I am so sorry,” Jaemin blurted.

Mark held his breath for three counts, then let it out. “It’s okay. We’re not dead. Fuck.”

Despite _knowing_ Mark wouldn’t lash out at him, Jaemin still settled back into his seat with relief. Mark had never proved his caution and instincts necessary. He had a temper for sure and was generally okay with expressing it, if only for the sake of letting it pass through him so he was no longer rendered incompetent via emotions. In all the years Jaemin had known him, never once had that anger been directed toward him, and over time, being proximal to it no longer set him on edge either. 

His instincts, though, engrained in him from another source, were difficult to shake.

“When are we next turning?” Mark asked, the vaguest tremble in his voice like it was working all the adrenaline out that his fingers couldn’t.

“Selar Street on the right. It’s three from now,” Jaemin told him, and let him glance at the screen for his own peace of mind.

“Got it, thank you.”

“Where _are _we going?” Donghyuck finally asked, and Jaemin laughed at the knowledge that they were just tagging along with Mark to who the hell knew where. He’d never gone stargazing with them. He didn’t think they’d ever gone stargazing either.

“It’s uh—” Mark flicked his fingers out from the wheel vaguely. “Yuqi, Yukhei’s girlfriend, said it’s a tiered parking lot where the top is like…empty by 5:30.”

“Are we trespassing?” Donghyuck asked, voice amused, and when Jaemin looked in the rearview, Renjun looked almost passive-passing if it weren’t for the glint in his eyes. Jaemin smiled.

“Not this time,” Mark said, and didn’t really even hesitate, and the implications there were probably, Jaemin was sure, delightful for Donghyuck. “But we’re breaking a few other rules tonight.”

Jaemin bit his lip in the smile he was still wearing. He’d catch hell for everything later, but for now this was perfect. They didn’t “rebel” often. They had hints of self-preservation at their core, but Yukhei had a real excited streak in him for doing unusual things, Yuqi was a creative enabler and mastermind, and Mark was fundamentally the kind of person who retaliated when he was put under too much pressure. Jaemin just liked to live sometimes.

Last time, they’d had a picnic in an abandoned warehouse and made shadow stories up on the wall. They never did anything worse than trespassing, though—Mark was still lawful, and none of them really found an appeal in vandalism or causing a ruckus. They all just needed to get out sometimes and occupy a space that wasn’t theirs.

But they had three other people with them who hadn’t agreed to anything illegal, so the only rules broken sat between Jaemin and Mark.

“I’m starting to think you’re actually a _bad_ influence,” Donghyuck said, and it sounded so close to a croon that Jaemin almost laughed at the way Mark fidgeted on instinct.

“That’s the answer I would have given,” Mark muttered.

* * *

On the last stretch, Renjun prodded Mark to crank up the audio out of sheer curiosity alone, and the car interior filled with Royal Blood. The guitar thrummed around them and vibrated in the seats and surfaces, and there was something about the defiance of the genre and the nature of what Jaemin was doing by coming along that felt like he was meant to yell. He settled for smiling, and laughing when Mark belted out a crackled line that he liked especially, and then they were turning down the music again to ride up to the top of a sparse parking garage.

From there, they could see the sunset blooming over the sparse trees and short, craggy concrete walls, and Jaemin pulled himself from the car in order to see it.

“Renjun, take a picture?” he asked, not having his cell even _on _him at this point. It was in Mark’s glove compartment where it would be staying indefinitely. Renjun, having circled around the car to get to him anyways, came close enough for Jaemin to feel the heat off the bare skin of his arm as he pulled out his phone. “Of us, too?”

Jaemin was always too nervous to save pictures on his phone that weren’t strictly concerning band or school. He wasn’t sure what his parents would find incriminating or might disapprove of, but he craved to rest his impulse to catalog every memory. If he didn’t capture things, they got all hazy and mixed together in his memories.

Someday, he wanted a quality camera, a photo book, hundreds of photos of snapshot memories.

One picture, maybe, of the way Renjun’s profile looked in the dying light, the wit tucked into his eyes that Jaemin was sure would show through a lens, the way the breeze shuffled his hair and made him look softer.

“Sure,” Renjun said, and made a soft humming noise of concentration as he lifted his arms and tried to get the best shot of the molten reds splitting the sky. He leaned in to Jaemin after taking three and showed them, so close Jaemin could have tilted his head and kissed him.

“Thank you.”

“Jaemin,” said Donghyuck, passenger door open and sitting with his legs out the side, “your crush is showing.” He smiled like this was entertaining for him, but also like he preferred things this way. Mark was still in the car, looking through notifications he’d missed, and Renjun made a sound like what Donghyuck had said pained him.

_“Stop,”_ he said. “You’ll encourage—”

“As it should,” Jaemin said firmly, and Renjun made a dying noise this time. He didn’t waste a moment, though, jerking Jaemin by the wrist further away from Donghyuck. He lifted his phone again, selfie mode on, and Jaemin didn’t have to look to the side to see the pink in his ears. The roof of the car was visible behind them, but it was mostly the fading rose of a sky, kisses of clouds lined with lavender farther from the sun.

Jaemin smiled for the camera on instinct, and Renjun followed suit half a second later, and right before he put his thumb down on the circle to take the picture, Renjun turned his head and pecked his cheek.

It was startling to see it reflected back at him—the way Renjun’s nose pressed into his skin, the way his own eyes widened in surprise, the hesitating blush that dusted Renjun’s cheeks as he rocked back on his heels from his toes. God, he’d had to go up on his toes.

Jaemin’s throat clicked as butterflies flocked up his airway. He almost couldn’t hear Donghyuck groan in disgust as Renjun flitted away. Not over the crepe paper wing beats in his inner ears.

He let out a breath, avoiding the urge to wheeze or put his hands on his knees, and watched as Renjun tugged Donghyuck away to take a picture from a different angle. He wore yellow against the vivid backdrop like a pale flower, his shirt tucked into his pants except in the back where it had come undone, white tape around his fingers gone for just bandaids instead, hair a mess in the wind.

“Hey, Jaemin?” Mark said from the car, leaning around the driver’s seat to project his voice.

Jaemin pulled himself out of reverie. “Mm.”

“Can you grab the blankets from the trunk? I’ll be out in a second.”

Since they’d be lying down, they’d planned in advance to bring cushioning, otherwise they’d manage twenty minutes max against the hard blacktop and probably get grey residue on their clothes and elbows to boot.

He circled back to the trunk and popped it, just starting to drag out the blankets when distant music started to be audible from a floor below them. As he pulled a heavy, flannel-stitched quilt out and tucked it up under his chin, Yuqi’s car came curving up onto their tier, windows rolled down and playing Eminem’s “Godzilla” in a rowdy reveal.

In the next second, Mark was gone—throwing himself out of the door to get to Yuqi’s car and shouting out the rap as soon as he latched on. Yuqi’s car jolted to a stop, Yukhei’s door opening immediately up, and then they were in each other’s faces trying to get on top of the beat in time for the killer verse. Yuqi cranked the volume, her laugh drowned out, and Jeno slid out of his side like if he was spotted, he might interrupt their flow and cause the apocalypse.

He came right over to Jaemin, and only after Jaemin got over looking at his face did he see the pistachio oreo thins Jeno had in his hands with the top peeled back. “They’re pretty good.”

_“You’re_ pretty good,” Jaemin said, but only because he had to do something with the desperation in his chest. Jeno had his glasses on again and looked so much better now just an hour or so later. Jaemin wanted to pull him in by the neck and hug him.

But he set aside the blanket and took an oreo.

Jeno scrunched his eyes at him in a smile. Mark and Yukhei were screaming about how they _almost had it, fuck! _and Yuqi was telling them they’d _never get it _as she pulled herself from her car. She looked like she’d just taken a shower recently, her curls a fluffy cloud, but she lugged out some of the groceries like a bodybuilder.

Renjun slid in next to Jaemin and stole a cookie, gesturing to the one Jaemin was still holding. “You going to actually put that in your mouth?”

Jaemin’s brains scrambled, then restarted, and he narrowed in on Renjun’s cookie, nabbed it before it reached his lips, and ate it. Just to witness the scandal.

Renjun stared at him.

Jaemin tried to swallow but then started to laugh, then choked, and then he was getting wrestled by Renjun, protests and playful fury grabbing at his skin and Jaemin was just trying to breathe, laugh, and not spit out cookie all at once. Jeno was just standing there. Bystander, spectator, smiling. Donghyuck was god knew where.

It wasn’t until Renjun hit him in the hip that he flinched in shock with a sound he couldn’t control, and things centered, and Renjun drew back with a gasp like Jaemin had hurt him instead. “Oh my god I’m sorry—”

Everything seemed to pause except for the background noise, Donghyuck’s laughter audible, the crinkling of plastic bags, the sound of a vehicle exiting the garage.

Jaemin’s heart trembled in his chest as he touched the bruise he’d forgotten he’d received. “For what?” But the adrenaline of glee had transferred straight into panic and he sounded afraid. Jaemin cleared his throat. “Do you two want to help me lay out the blankets?”

“Yes,” Jeno said without hesitating, opening up Mark’s car door to set the oreos down on the back seat for a moment. “Would love to.”

Existing suddenly felt disjointed. Renjun was already back to looking at him like he was normal again, but it felt wrong. Like everything inside his body and mind had shifted ever so slightly to the left. Like he’d forgotten who he was for just a second, but couldn’t escape it.

* * *

By the time the blankets were arranged and the snacks lined up, Mark with a plastic spoon digging into his ice cream before it melted, the sun had exited the sky completely. The lamps were off on this top floor, true to Yuqi’s claims, and the sky was almost entirely open to them, only a few clouds suggesting mellow shapes against its dark backdrop.

“I keep thinking Orion’s Belt is the Big Dipper,” Mark said.

“It’s bigger than you think,” said Yuqi, putting out her hand to point somewhere, but it was only accurate from her perspective. “Look just—no not—yeah. Right there.” She put a chip in her mouth and the crunch could be heard even as Mark gasped.

“That’s a big boy,” said Mark, and Donghyuck was groaning, resistance his brand, now, and stifling a noise not unlike a laugh.

“Don’t call it that,” he protested.

“It lorge,” Jaemin muttered, and Renjun pinched the skin of his wrist.

The way they were situated, they were in circle with their heads in the middle and Jaemin between Jeno and Renjun, looping around with Mark next to Jeno, Yuqi next to Mark, Yukhei next to Yuqi, Donghyuck between Yukhei and Renjun.

Jeno had, some time ago, captured Jaemin’s hand in his, and Jaemin had copied the action to Renjun, who had only let go to pinch him.

Jaemin grinned and captured Renjun’s fingers again, fiddling the pad of his thumb over one of Renjun’s bandaids. He’d let himself forget about life again, willfully perhaps, out of nausea and frustration alone.

It was a funny thing with all their heads in a circle. The sounds bounced strangely, and they felt closer than ever while straddling the awkwardness of the social realization that if any of them turned their heads, they might just brush someone’s cheek with their nose.

“It never made sense to me that baby bear’s porridge was just right in Goldilock’s story,” Jeno said, loud enough for the whole circle to hear and question because—

“Jeno…what?” Renjun said, mirth in his tone, and Jaemin turned his head anyway to look at Jeno’s profile and riddle out his thought process. He couldn’t immediately fathom the connection any more than Renjun could.

It was futile, though. He mostly got thinking about how pretty the shape of his nose was.

“No—no I get it,” said Yukhei, and Jaemin brought his brain back to attention. “Like, if I had to choose between the little dipper and the big dipper, I would wish for a medium dipper.”

“God, can you imagine naming something the medium dipper,” said Yuqi.

_“So,”_ Yukhei continued, “mama bear should have the best porridge.”

“Right,” said Jeno, squeezing Jaemin’s hand, and then Jaemin was laughing again, righting his head, feeling the ridiculousness of the connection in his chest as he blinked up at little pinpricks of white on a dark backdrop.

“But?” And it was Renjun again. “But, obviously they would try harder to make the baby’s porridge the best?”

“How hard is it, though,” said Mark, “to make all three servings the same temperature? And if it had to do with portions, then the baby bear’s porridge would be the coldest.”

“Unless mama bear is dieting,” said Yuqi, and Yukhei made a sound of horror and protest.

“Please never diet—” he started to murmur, and Yuqi snipped back, “Just because I’m a girl—”

“See, I always thought it was preference?” Donghyuck said finally. “And the baby bear’s like. Taste buds are…baby, you know. So like. Daddy—”

“Don’t say daddy,” Renjun butted in immediately.

_“Daddy bear,”_ said Donghyuck, and Jeno was laughing this time, which made Jaemin want to join in by instinct alone, “likes his goop piping hot and steamy—”

_“Fuck_ me,” Renjun complained. “Why do you have to say it like that?”

“Mama likes her soggy oats straight out of the fridge, and—” Jaemin could hear Donghyuck shift closer to Renjun and lifted his head just to witness the look of pure mischief in his eyes as he spoke right up against Renjun’s ear (Renjun’s eyes squeezed tight in pain). “—ickle bwaybwee bwear—”

_“Ugh!”_ Renjun shoved him right into Yukhei, Yukhei laughing, Donghyuck laughing as well. Everyone laughing, actually, except for Renjun for a moment until he cracked.

Mark came to with a giggling gasp. “Okay but…but p-preference makes the most sense.”

Jaemin wondered if Donghyuck felt satisfaction at making Mark laugh. It was an easy task once certain barriers were brought down, and he’d rather thought they were still up. Groups dynamics were a different beast, though. 

And Jaemin wasn’t blind. Not unless Jeno or Renjun were in front of him. If Donghyuck didn’t have Mark’s number by the end of this, Jaemin would be wondering what went wrong.

“Preference makes the most sense,” Mark said again, firmer this time, “but how hot was that porridge to start with if da—if papa bear’s porridge was still hot by the time Goldilocks got to it?”

“Coward,” Jaemin heard Donghyuck grumble.

“Why are we still _talking _about this?” Jaemin finally asked, bewilderment and amusement both trapped in his body. “Look what you’ve done, Jeno.”

Jeno just smiled at him, tilting his head just enough for it to be direct.

Just then a phone went off. Just a buzzing, and everyone shifted by instinct to check if it was theirs—even Jaemin.

It was Mark’s, though, and Jaemin tilted his head to watch as he sat up and plopped his spoon in his pint of ice cream, shifting his phone to his ear. “Hey, mom!”

The voice that came through the speaker was just audible enough that Jaemin froze, and suddenly Mark was up and out of the circle. Away from all of them, five steps away, ten, and Jaemin’s heart was so loud in his ears he forgot how to think.

He scrambled up belatedly, and Yukhei made a noise of protest. “Jaemin—Jaemin no. Let him deal—”

“I—” Jaemin _couldn’t. _He needed to know. Now that the barrier had been broken, the fear was flooding him. “Just hold—just hold on.” And he was jogging after Mark.

Mark turned to him to check who it was, and then his eyes turned from wary to something like hurt, again. “I’m just out with Yukhei and Yuqi, ma’am,” he was saying, and Jaemin’s pulse was at the back of his tongue and he couldn’t breathe. “We’re stargazing, actually?” Mark laughed, and somehow it didn’t sound thin or fake. Jaemin gestured for Mark to put it on speaker phone, _please,_ and Mark just shook his head. “It sounds dumb, I know, but I had three tests earlier today and I needed something stupid.” He closed his eyes like his words pained him, throat working, knowing he was rambling slightly. He rambled under pressure.

Jaemin got as close as Mark would allow without stepping away, eyes open again to resist him getting too close to hear.

“No…No, ma’am. It’s just Yukhei and Yuqi and I. Yeah, yeah she’s Yukhei’s girlfriend. N—right. No, they’re both my friends. I don’t feel like I’m third-wheeling.”

Jaemin could hear his mother’s voice but not distinguish words. 

“Um, no. I didn’t even invite him. It’s a school night, you know?” Mark’s hand was shaking as he drew it through his hair. “I saw him after school, yeah. No. No, I didn’t know he had his phone off. I only saw him for a second. Ma’am—Mrs. Na? Is Jaemin okay?” Again, his eyes closed, squeezing, and his throat worked, and Jaemin realized Mark was seconds away from crying. The horror he felt was so profound it made his vision spin. “Do you need me to look for him? My curfew’s not until ten…He—I don’t know. I—he’s usually home. I’m sorry, I really don’t know where he could be. Wh-where am I?”

Jaemin’s breath froze in his chest.

“I’m about twenty minutes out of Granite Heights?”

Jaemin didn’t know how on earth Mark could do this. Mark Lee, making his intonations sound just right even as he was blinking through tears.

“Yeah, no of course. You can call me again. I’ll keep my phone on. Yeah. Keep me posted? Yeah.”

Jaemin’s mom hung up, but Mark didn’t move until a lagging two seconds later, and Jaemin witnessed it roll over him like a tank.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, hand tremors so bad he almost missed, and his eyes dilated around tears, and then all at once his hands were over his mouth and he was hyperventilating.

Jaemin scrambled to touch him, to rake back his hair and the sudden perspiration that had formed, hug him close. Mark was wiry in his arms, chest rising fitfully. “I hate her—Jaemin I hate her.”

“I know—”

“What have I done?” Tears. Mark’s face was wet, the panic so strong Jaemin could taste it, feel the metal of it twanging in his bloodstream like fire alarms. “She’s going to kill you. She—”

“She’s _not,” _Jaemin promised. “You haven’t done anything.”

“I _brought _you here.”

“I can’t—Mark,” Jaemin said, breathing so hard himself that everything was pale and spinning, and he held Mark away from himself, “I would already be dead without you.”

Mark choked, eyes squinting in pain, and then he had Jaemin by the shoulders, grip tight. “You can’t _say_ that. You…” And then Mark was all tears, shoving at the overflow with his hands and heaving in patchy gasps. Some part of Jaemin had slipped out of his grasp as soon as Mark was pulling away. 

Yukhei was jogging up, now, the situation too big to ignore, and shoved them both into his arms—Mark struggling and Jaemin only partially present anymore.

“Hey, hey. Hey, guys. Markie, I need you to breathe. She can’t hurt us. They can’t hurt Jaemin right now.” His voice was dark and deep and warm. The same kind of voice Jaemin had heard Yukhei’s dad use just once.

“I can’t _do_ anything!” Mark bit out against Yukhei’s chest. “I’m so fucking—I’m fucking useless. I’m—I _hate—”_

“I know. I _know. _I’ll take Jaemin home with me, okay?”

Yukhei’s big hand slid up and down Jaemin’s back, and then he felt his lips against his forehead. “Stay with me, Nana,” he murmured, and Jaemin couldn’t be sure which way he was requesting. To be mentally present or to return with him.

He next felt Mark struggling into Jaemin’s grip and hold his so tightly it reminded him of old bruises. He took massive, steadying breaths while Yukhei brushed his fingers through their hair.

“I’m sorry, Jaemin,” Mark muttered wetly. “I’m sorry for freaking out. You don’t need that.”

“No,” Jaemin said, numb, “I get it.”

“Please know I want you here,” Mark continued. “I love you so much, Jaemin Na. Don’t you dare leave after I’m gone.”

That pushed all the air out of Jaemin’s lungs, and a part of him planted its feet again. He curled into Mark’s body, remembering to hug him back. He thought before he said something this time. Mulled it over as Mark hiccuped against his neck. “Every day since you met me, I’ve found more…reasons to keep existing. I’ll be okay. I know you’re scared, but I’ll be okay. I’ll survive it.”

Mark’s sound was painful and sad, and it ached horribly in Jaemin’s chest, but Jaemin was sure he was right. The supports Mark and Yukhei had spent years establishing to convince Jaemin he was worth the space he took up by existing had required too much love and too much effort to discard as soon as they left for college. Not only that, but he…he thought maybe he found two more people to cover the losses of their proximity.

He hoped they were okay with that.

* * *

The group was uneasy when they returned, but Yuqi made a jab that Mark looked like someone had thrown him out of a plane and the tension cracked a little.

From there, the setup shifted. They sat around in a circle, passing the snacks and cookies around for every time someone volunteered a fact about themselves, though Jaemin’s hands were always occupied with either Jeno’s or Renjun’s fingers. Both, usually. They squeezed, sometimes, like a ticking clock, but one that promised support.

Jaemin took a breath and volunteered. Right after Yuqi admitted she wanted to be a Tolkien dwarf when she was younger (“Yeah, well you’ve got the height down pat,” said Mark, which earned him a punch to the stomach.)

Jaemin accepted the donut holes and pinched one between his fingers. He felt himself begin to pull away, like a train backsliding on silver thread of tracks. He tried to keep himself present. Pull himself forward and say it with his chest, even if his throat tightened around it like a vice.

“My parents are abusive,” he said simply.

He didn’t think he’d say it like this. In this kind of situation.

“That was my mom calling through Mrs. Lee’s phone.” He stared at a splotch of patterning on the blanket beneath him, indistinct and wonky. “Last time I did something like this my dad beat me, but that’s no way to live, so here I am. I’ll be going home with Yukhei after this.”

He popped the donut hole in his mouth and held it there to dissolve the glaze, wiped his fingers on his pants, then reclaimed Jeno’s hand from when he had let go.

Yuqi was the first to say something, sagging into her posture and looking at Jaemin with pride and warmth. “Thank you, Jaemin.”

He breathed out slowly, finally chewing what was in his mouth properly and swallowing. Renjun, for the second time ever, pressed his lips to Jaemin’s knuckles. Renjun’s exhale was shaky, but when Jaemin looked over, he seemed otherwise okay. He hoped he would stay okay. Donghyuck, on Renjun’s other side, was looking out at the sky, lips a firm line.

Jeno was fiddling with the edge of one of the blankets, then reached for a donut hole, too, from the box in front of Jaemin.

“I have a secret that, um, I think I’d rather share with Renjun and Jaemin privately, but I have a lighter one to share,” Jeno said, both a promise and a tiny nervousness in his tone. He glanced at the two of them, then settled his gaze on Renjun first. “I’ve been crushing on Renjun since first year,” he said, firm, and a feeling of shy, secondary delight took over the noise in Jaemin’s head. “He threw a shoe at one of my section mates and apparently my brain thinks, um, violence is attractive.”

Donghyuck snorted so hard, he complained in pain almost immediately, and Jaemin was caught up in a laugh as Renjun, lit only by the flashlights of a few phones, blushed like a bruise in the shadows. “I don’t even remember that,” he admitted, and Jeno as well as everyone else was smiling.

Jaemin could imagine it almost perfectly and he was properly enchanted by the image.

“And _Jaemin,”_ Jeno said with a sigh, and Jaemin felt himself startle, not expecting he’d be a part of this, “gave me a valentine’s card in sixth grade and I’ve liked him ever since.”

Yukhei gave a downright whoop of glee, and some incredibly intense complex of emotion had Jaemin near-crippled with surprise as he stared at Jeno’s face for a sign of jest. There was none, though there was an endearing scrunch to his nose.

“He’s got you beat,” Donghyuck said to Renjun, and then whined at some physical retaliation. (“It’s not a contest.”)

“Oh,” Jaemin finally found words to say. All his interactions up until this very second hit him. _Oh god, _he thought, _I didn’t even know his name. _“W—” His brain was fizzling. “Huh.”

Mark was laughing again, amused, it seemed, over Jaemin’s lack of processing skills. In the hour between school and this parking garage, Jaemin had told all three of them that he was “with” Jeno and Renjun, so to speak. He was incredibly grateful, now, that he had done so.

Jeno ate his donut hole and pushed the box away from himself, looking relieved and cutely smug all at once.

Whatever was in Jaemin’s chest morphed into something pleasant and strange, and in light of all the other fears he had to face, he thought maybe he could stop being afraid he would torture Jeno and Renjun by being with them.

He could let himself have this, just like he let himself have Mark and Yukhei, then Yuqi. There were people he wanted to have and to keep, and maybe that would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about mmmm 800 words longer than the usual chapter, and there were parts of this that were difficult for me to write, so please forgive me if it's not up to par. I really...this chapter is important and I liked it, so I hope you guys liked it too.
> 
> Thank you, once again, for your patience with me and your support. I really try not to rush each chapter, which means you have to wait longer sometimes ;; I'm sorry for that.
> 
> Likewise, I promise I'm trying to get through comments. I love and treasure every one. Thank you, thank you.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
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	24. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeno will briefly talk about his mother's death and his own grief. Especially during this time, if these are sensitive to you, please read with care or wait until another time ♡ 
> 
> Forgive any mistakes! You guys waited so long that I didn't really drag it out any longer by taking time to edit hhhhh I hope to get the next update out quicker!!

It was around nine-thirty by the time they got back into either Mark’s or Yuqi’s cars. They’d overshot how long they’d be staying out by a mile, but that was a good thing. Time had rushed by them, but it hadn’t taken six hours with it. It had, instead, taken the edge out of California’s heat, and when Jaemin popped into the other side of the back seat, he’d pilfered one of Mark’s blankets and was bundling himself up into a messy bundle. He wrestled with the corners to cover himself more completely while Jeno resettled the grocery snacks they had or had not finished at the foot of the center seat.

Yukhei was talking to Mark while they packed the other blankets back into the trunk of Mark’s car, and Renjun and Donghyuck were doing rock-paper-scissors for shotgun. Yuqi, in the driver’s seat, was looking at her phone properly for the first time in hours. 

After pulling at the blanket around him, Jaemin’s hair was a mess, sticking up in tufts and disarray. Jeno wasn’t sure whether to gaze at him blatantly or interchange glances between Jaemin’s precious disorder and the rustling plastic in his grip.

He breathed out of his nose.

“You look cute,” Jeno decided to tell him, sliding to a sit and reaching for the seatbelt. Jaemin peeked up from the edge of the blanket, wiggling his fingers out of one fold so he could put his own seatbelt on, and smiled like he thought Jeno was infinitely cuter just for opening his mouth and saying words—regardless of the content.

“There’s enough blanket for two,” Jaemin returned. Like it was a contest to see who could make the other’s heart beat faster. It easily had the desired effect, Jeno’s heart pulling like it had been latched by a rope to the end of a greek chariot. It rushed through the dust as Jeno tried to process the suggested image.

“You two can cuddle,” Yuqi said, setting her phone down next to the stick shift and looking at them through the rearview. “I won’t mind.”

Jeno lacked the capacity to understand the jumble of responses his mind knotted itself into. It was infinitely more difficult to successfully envision cuddling Jaemin—not because he didn’t want to. It was because he wanted to, because it was his highest conceivable affection, that he was losing all faculties at the end of a very long day at a mere two suggestions.

He’d willingly, purposefully knocked down one of his own walls tonight, telling a secret he hadn’t any previous intention on revealing. Yeeun had said something interesting to him, though, their conversation secure in his pocket where he’d texted one out while he’d been home. “Maybe you’ll stop feeling guilty,” she’d texted, “if you let them know how long you’ve liked them.”

As it was, he felt more vulnerable than he’d yet been, and while he didn’t have a problem with the exposure, he had to regain his bearings. New waters, here. Knowing Jaemin _knew_ Jeno liked him—badly enough to be smitten with him to varying degrees since he was eleven—changed so much in the most imperceptible fashion that even more intimate physical proximity was sending him into a tailspin.

Yukhei jostled himself in the car, immediately saying something to Yuqi about plans for the weekend, and Jaemin turned toward Jeno by pressing himself into the corner between the seat and the door. “Too soon for cuddling?” Jaemin asked softly. Probably because Jeno hadn’t budged.

The fact that he said it as if it was an inevitability, an eventuality, made his internals lurch like a puppy against its leash. Jeno resisted the urge to close his eyes and imagine it—first of all because he’d been forcing himself away from imagining anything concerning what-ifs with Jaemin and Renjun for years now, and second of all because Jaemin was legitimately offering.

Jeno drew in a breath, flitting his gaze over Jaemin bundled up like the tartan blanket he had around him was a chrysalis, big eyes and long eyelashes blinking at him while he pressed his cheek against his seatbelt. “No,” he managed finally. “I love cuddling.”

Something very small shifted in Jaemin’s expression, like an emotion Jeno hadn’t yet learned how to parse had relaxed. His fingers snuck out of his cocoon again and undid his buckle, unfolding briefly so he could crawl across to the middle seat and offer a corner of his blanket for Jeno to pull. There was a genuine smile sneaking through the corner of Jaemin’s mouth as he settled down again.

He got to see Jaemin’s face dipped for a moment as he fixed the tangle he was in, his eyelashes dark against the slim cut of his cheekbones and the dull yellow light of the overhead fluorescents. Jeno stayed perfectly still as Jaemin slid in close next to him, his thigh snug up against his own, and he really wasn’t all that warm, just a mild pressure against his jeans. 

It was just the proximity of him that made time flag to a stop, flickering weakly in the late hour.

“Unbuckle,” Jaemin mumbled, then did it for him instead in the same breath, wiry fingers up against his hip to tuck the latch into the gap in the seats.

Jeno knew that the mad fluttering of his heart up against his lungs, shoving them around like it could shake their nonexistent shoulders and force them to breathe faster, deserved acknowledgment. Even though he’d held Jaemin before—thrice now. It had hurt all three times, at the time, because they were for trust he felt he hadn’t earned yet over matters that scared him. His longest suspicion and fear was confirmed now, and it made all of those embraces a dozen times harder in retrospect.

There was so little he could do for Jaemin, and nearly everything that was most horrid about the circumstances were entirely out of his control.

So this was different. Jaemin wasn’t too small, shaking, or crying. He was handsome and confident enough to discard of any barrier for himself and glance up at Jeno through his eyelashes like he knew what he was doing. That was terrifying in other ways.

He un-stiffened by sheer reverse-willpower, dragging the blanket closer by a few inches. He ran warm and didn’t objectively need the blanket, but needed the excuse. Needed a reason to maneuver awkwardly about until he was sharing a seat and a half with one of two boys for whom he would probably do just about anything if they let him.

He settled his head on the window with Jaemin leaned into him, angled slightly, hair touching the line of his jaw, and rearranged his limbs slightly to accommodate. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but he wasn’t ashamed of the fact that he would maintain it for hours if it meant sharing his bubble with this boy. His hand was determined to condemn him, barely settled, barely relaxed against the small of Jaemin’s waist behind his back and already sweating. But nothing was nearly as difficult as Jaemin settling in, breathing out, draping the blanket across himself and Jeno’s lap, and settling his hand on the very inside of Jeno’s knee. Just his knee.

Just his knee.

As Yuqi started up the car, with all the shakiness in the damn world, Jeno turned his head and pressed his lips to Jaemin’s crown. He wished for this to last. Not the car ride, necessarily, but being able to hold Jaemin close while he was safe and content.

Yuqi turned up the music to a low, ambient radio-surf, still talking for the time being about the weekend. Jaemin shifted his touch off Jeno’s knee and searched for his free hand instead, lacing their fingers and settling the intertwined grip on the same thigh he’d left. Jeno let himself put pressure on Jaemin’s waist, holding him closer. His heart thudded bright in his throat.

“We’ll have to include Renjun next time,” Jaemin murmured, sounding soft and warmed already as he relaxed his head into the crook of Jeno’s neck. Jeno kept his shoulder sloped for him, trying not to squeeze his hand too much. He didn’t have to be so tense about this. He didn’t. Jaemin had asked for this. He was _not_ taking advantage of him. He _wasn’t._

“Please,” Jeno said into his hair, as if he would know what to do with himself even then.

After no more than five minutes of streetlights and color-faded buildings in suburbia passing, Jaemin sunk from Jeno’s shoulder, forehead pressed to the skin of his neck, jaw pushed into his collar bone as soft exhales warmed the neck of his shirt. With the radio on low and Yukhei and Yuqi having settled into quiet, Jeno felt caught in something liminal

Carefully and as slowly as he could manage, Jeno unknotted their hands, Jaemin’s falling warm, now, back against his thigh. Trying not to jostle him, he reached to adjust Jaemin’s head where he wouldn’t be pressing bone against bone, settling his cheek on his upper chest right above his steadying heart.

He kept his hand against Jaemin’s neck and jaw to prevent him from slipping as he shifted in his seat, allowing Jaemin to keep settled, lax and asleep.

The subtle movement got Yukhei looking up through the rearview, and Jeno met his eyes there. Yukhei had large eyes, and to Jeno, they showed a lot of cautious warmth in just that moment. He couldn’t say for sure—he’d spent a grand total of four hours in his proper proximity.

Yukhei broke eye-contact and leaned over to Yuqi as soon as she stopped at a sign. “Jaemin’s asleep,” Jeno heard over the low music, and Yuqi gave a nod, after which Yukhei twisted in his seat and whispered, “Doesn’t fall asleep easily. When we get to your house, how do you feel about staying? For a little?”

Jeno nodded lightly, feeling a tuft of Jaemin’s mussed hair brush his lips.

“Just thirty minutes to let him sleep,” Yukhei promised, and it wasn’t a problem because Jeno had told his dad he’d be back before eleven.

He hadn’t finished any of his homework or readings, but ever since last year, he was of the firm opinion that most things were more important than schoolwork—especially if he could finish it in prior classes, passing periods, lunchtime. He doubted he would remember twenty pages of reading a year from now, but he would almost definitely remember Jaemin trusting him enough to fall asleep on his shoulder.

Still carefully holding him against his chest with a soft hold on Jaemin’s neck, he stopped watching the front seats and the window to look over the tartan across their laps, the indiscernible part in Jaemin’s hair, to consider the soft warmth of his skin under his own callused touch. From this angle, he couldn’t see much else, but he didn’t need to. This was enough.

Eventually, Yuqi slowed to a stop—long after Jeno’s mind had hazed out enough that he didn’t immediately register his neighborhood. She turned off her headlights, settling in across the street from his house, and very carefully released the latch on her seat so it would lean back. Jeno signaled for Yukhei that he could do the same (he was taller, but not that tall, and had plenty of leg room), and then Yukhei was setting a timer for 30 minutes at 9:42, and sound peeled away from the car until it was, to Jeno, just Jaemin’s close breaths against his chest.

Yuqi and Yukhei held hands over the center console, the digital clock at the front a dim and steady light. Outside the windows, his neighborhood was mostly contained. Lit-up windows looked out at the streets and cars crawled by within the speed-limit with their lowlights, the paved road making soft sounds under their wheels. There were crickets out, and somewhere Jeno knew there was a bullfrog opining under windows.

If he let his eyelids fall, the scene at the pool flickered through the spaces in his ribs and stuck long, thin needles in his lungs, eking out the fresh air he’d gained.

He’d never had the chance to see his mother in the moments leading up to her drowning. He knew he didn’t want to, even if there was a part of him that wished he’d been witness. To see her in her last moment, dying in waters flooding out lavender and her bold, sand-infused glow.

Jeno pressed his lips again to the top of Jaemin’s head and breathed in the faint scent of a shampoo he couldn’t place and the slight lift of marching band sweat. He grounded himself this way.

When he’d gotten back home, it was just him with Chenle and Jisung making sandwiches out of the street-food toast ingredients his dad kept on stock for when things went sideways. Jisung had asked with a new ice pack up to his nose if Jeno wanted silence, and he’d stared at the cutting board for so long Jisung had simply opted to wrap one lanky arm around his middle and press himself up against his back.

There was something acutely painful and nauseating about grief fading—like flowers planted over a grave starting to rot and die. The tides switched back and doubled up on guilt for his healing, disgust that he was willing to forget to feel pain over her. His father and he intrinsically knew that she wouldn’t even accept their grief. She would be horrified at their ruin and that it persisted for so long. But she did not have that right. She did not have that right to disapprove, and Jeno wanted to burn for her until he died.

The fact that he couldn’t—that he was losing his way back out of grief, clinging to things and people who made him feel like he was worth a moment of respite—was trying for him. He could always live for his dad, but starting to live for himself again was something he didn’t want to allow himself, and yet desperately, agonizingly wanted for himself.

He dreaded the day he would reveal to these two boys that they were the fixation for his healing. He was sure he would never tell them explicitly that he was learning to live again by loving them.

He’d been in recovery for a long time. Climbing slowly because he wasn’t willing to rush himself through a process that started miles under trauma. But there was a difference between the haze fading—of simply learning to walk through the processes of life like a functional human being—and _living,_ and Jaemin and Renjun marked the distinction.

But the day that had passed was agony to endure. He was still affected. He was still several clay pieces nailed the floor by the image of blood and water.

He would never get past certain things, and despite everything, it was relaxing the claws he had sunk into his grief. There were certain things that would never lose their edge, and perhaps that was enough.

He didn’t know.

It hurt to think about.

He still didn’t want to let go.

He wanted to know if there was a way he could convert this despair into morning light, again. If he could relearn water. If he could forgive it for taking and then himself for not knowing the moment she’d died that she was gone.

Jeno watched the clock sink through time, unable to keep his eyes closed for even as long as a minute. 

He failed to notice when the digits hit 10:12, the seats and mixed breaths having faded into something largely removed from him, so he startled when Yukhei’s alarm pinged through enclosed walls. Jaemin stiffened over him—he could feel the way his fingers pinched into his thigh and the sudden tension in his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno murmured while Yukhei fumbled to switch off the alarm. He lowered his hand as Jaemin lifted off his chest and shifted away slightly, removing his hand and staring at him “Are you okay?”

Jaemin blinked, his hand coming down again under the tartan, fingertips nervous. He went to say something, but then Yukhei was turning around, eyes bleary. “Sorry, Jaem,” he breathed. “We wanted to let you sleep.”

Jaemin closed his mouth and swallowed, and Yukhei reached over the shoulder of his seat to brush his fingers through Jaemin’s mussed locks. Jaemin lowered his head slightly to allow it, perhaps subconsciously. “We’re at Jeno’s,” Yukhei continued, taking his hand back. “Do you want to walk him to the door?”

Yuqi adjusted her seat to be upright again with a stifled yawn and a shake of her head, likely chasing away sleep. “Then I’ll drop you right off at Xuxi’s,” she promised, looking over as well and taking in the slow thaw in Jaemin’s spine, her voice scratchy. “You’re not going home tonight.”

Jaemin swallowed again and nodded, gathering his corner of the blanket closer to his chest, then making a move to reach for the handle of Jeno’s door. He intercepted this, failing to imaging Jaemin crawling over him to get through a door he should logically go through first. After getting himself out, he steadied Jaemin’s shoulder, helping him adjust the blanket he elected not to leave in the back seat.

The walk was silent across the street and to his doorstep, but whatever burgeoning anxiety had started to accumulate between his lungs dispersed significantly when Jaemin reached for his hand, blanket bunching around the hook of his wrist.

Five steps away from the front door, Jeno asked, “Was it okay that I let you fall asleep on me?” Hand-holding or no, he was worried about getting an accurate read on Jaemin’s silence.

Jaemin looked at him, and Jeno paused before the door for him, curling his fingers up against Jaemin’s knuckles. When Jaemin smiled, Jeno felt relief crackle through him like a broken glow stick. “Mm,” Jaemin confirmed, and Jeno was rapidly forcing himself to adjust to coming face-to-face with Jaemin’s quietest side. 

“Okay,” Jeno said, squeezing Jaemin’s hand in his. He looked cuter than before, if possible. “Did I surprise you?”

“A little,” Jaemin said, and his voice was lower and a little faded. “You’re really warm, you know?”

Realistically, it was a neutral comment at best, and yet it made the lights in his periphery brighter. How could he tell someone he would gladly let them nap on him again? That he was happy to run warm for someone who ran colder? Jeno let go of his exhale and nodded, and Jaemin gave the smallest, sleepiest laugh.

Jaemin let go of his hand to reach up, instead, to tilt Jeno’s head down with just his fingertips. A graduation from cheek kisses to forehead kisses seemed a significant thing in that moment, looking down to see the slightest lift of Jaemin’s heels, the tight grip he had on the blanket and pinching it together, the dry press of his lips against his skin.

He’d not known what to expect from affection—hadn’t dared to imagine anything at all with them—but he never would have assumed he could feel so fulfilled and intimate with what they had already established.

When Jaemin let him go, he felt his throat work in mystery words. Things that hadn’t even crossed his mind, but he already wanted to say. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said instead, plain and simple, witnessing the scrunch in Jaemin’s nose and eyes nonetheless.

“Alright,” Jaemin said and patted his cheek, and Jeno’s heart swelled so suddenly, he had to physically repress the urge to sweep Jaemin in a hug. He let out a heavy breath and waved back as Jaemin gave a farewell wiggle of his fingers, turning back down the walk. The lawn tickled the edges of his tartan blanket, trees murmuring in the vaguest breeze among the cricket sounds.

Jeno failed to get his hand around the doorknob the first effort he made, forgetting to look away from Jaemin’s back.

* * *

His dad was settled in the lounge chair in their bedroom, head tipped back, throat strained enough to let out raspy snore for every inhale. He’d changed out of his work clothes, wearing one of his old, paint-splattered free t-shirts and joggers.

_“Appa,” _Jeno whispered from the doorway, peeking around the gap, and his dad closed his mouth, but otherwise did not wake up. “Dad,” Jeno said, but louder, and his best friend shook himself awake with a startled tremor. “I’m home,” he told his half-awake form and the tilt around his eyes where he tended to squint his half-blind gaze. “Just gonna change and I’ll hop into bed.”

“‘Kay,” his dad grunted, picking himself out of the chair. “How was—”

“In a second,” Jeno promised, and slipped away back to his bedroom.

One section of the floor creaked underfoot in the hallway, familiar like a soft ‘welcome home.’

Jeno kept his clothes and other personal items in his bedroom, as dusty as his bed was. He changed out of his pants and shirt, trading it for a tee so old it felt like silk, and brushed his teeth without quite meeting his eyes in the mirror.

He brought his makeup remover with him while he wandered back to his dad, wiping gently at his eyes, but having one open enough to see his dad under the covers and staring at the ceiling. He turned his head for his son, though, smiling as Jeno crawled up onto the bed and offered a clean cotton to his dad’s hands.

“How did it go?”

Jeno closed his eyes against the sure hands that held his chin and brushed over his eyelids. “I told them how long I’ve liked them for.”

“Ooh,” his dad said. _“Big step.”_

_“I’m still nervous.”_

His dad hummed softly, using a clean side to caress over the rest of his face. “I think I would be flattered.”

Jeno was handed back the cotton wipe and got a rustle of fingers through his hair, too. He slipped back off the bed to visit the trashcan in the master bathroom and set aside the the bottle, then came right back to the bed, nestling up against the pillow opposite his dad.

There was exhaustion as usual under his dad’s eyes as he reached for his hands and knotted their fingers together. “How are you feeling?” his dad asked, rubbing his thumbs into the tired muscles between Jeno’s thumbs and forefingers while avoiding the bruises entirely.

When he was asked that sort of question, a spoken answer wasn’t always the clearest one between them, so Jeno simply closed his eyes and pressed his cheek into the pillow. The lavender was fresh in the sheets.

“Alright,” his dad said. “Alright.” He freed one hand to twist back and turn off the bedside lamp, letting the room swallow itself up into quiet for the eyes, too. “Tell me more in the morning?”

Jeno nodded and closed the rest of the space, collecting his dad in the way his dad collected him.

“I’m glad you had a happy time,” his dad said as his goodnight words, and Jeno didn’t wonder how he could tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assessment next. Think of Renjun kindly ♡ 
> 
> Also!! Happy NCT Dream news ;; I was overjoyed.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	25. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Renjun is very stressed and panicking a lot in this chapter. If you are triggered by stress/panic/anxiety or _nausea,_ please proceed with caution.
> 
> This is a faster update than typical because I wanted to make up for how patiently you guys have been waiting for the other ones. If I can, I'll try to get back on top of an update every other week.
> 
> Formatting's slightly different in this chapter for ease!
> 
> Cross your fingers for our boy ♡

Ruolan found him at three in the morning gagging at the toilet bowl with his head between his elbows, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

She said nothing, only sitting on the ground and rubbing firmly between his pinched shoulder blades and let him wrestle with the stress.

Nothing ever came up, his throat tensing and trembling, stomach scalding and shrunken, but tears did fall into the water of the toilet bowl. Both she and he knew this was an irrational upsurge—he knew he had literally practiced until his hands bled, he knew he has everything down by heart to the point that he could play both with confidence and soul. But he could see Ms. M and the pit tech, anyway, asking him why he was still so shitty. Or why no one talked to him. Or why he wanted to be section leader so badly if he wouldn’t even look at his own section. Or why he thought he was qualified if Sarwendah had already told them that he didn’t stand up for her when Donghyuck had ripped her a new one in front of half the band.

He wouldn’t put it past her.

Feeling filthy and sour and taut and miserable, but slowly cooling down from his sister’s fingertips, he retracted from the toilet and pressed at his eyes with the back of his wrist.

“Tell me one more time why you’re doing this,” Ruolan murmured, switching up movements so her palm rubbed down his spine, then rose again to knead at his neck. “I remember,” she assured him, “but I think you’re so stressed you’ve forgotten, so remind me.”

Renjun wheezed at the naked tile around him, trying to swallow around the pain in his throat as he gave a jerky nod. She didn’t make him look at her or answer right away, simply keeping her touch steady. She was up, probably, because of some assignment or exam—a dozen times more important than some over-blown high school fixation.

“I want to know I can do it,” he croaked, scraping his fingernails into the grout and wishing fervently his stomach would stop pitching itself over cliff edges. “I want to get something I want and worked for,” he said. He gnawed into his lip, eyes digging into the corner between the wall and the shower’s tub.

Ruolan stilled her hand to only her thumb pressing light circles behind his ear. “What’ll you do if they don’t pick you, Injunnie?” she asked, so soft it couldn’t possibly be interpreted as judgmental.

Before he could even consider the question or possibly confront the answer, the reaction for the mere possibility knocked into him disastrously, a fresh wave of misery washing up in hot tears. “I don’t know,” he choked. “I don’t know.”

He curled into her arms when she offered them, soaking the neck of her shirt as she rocked him side to side from their position on the cold floor. “I want you to know,” she said, “that if they don’t choose you, you’re not a failure. Losing is nothing to be ashamed of.” She stroked her fingers up the hair of his nape. “Failure is not admitting defeat or letting go. I’m not a failure just because I bombed my Earth Science exam and got over it, okay?” Carefully, she nudged him away from her neck and thumbed away his tears. “You’re going to get back up again if they tell you no because you owe it to yourself. You’ve already proven to yourself that you can work this hard for something.” She wiped her wet fingers on her sleeping shorts, then tidied his hair with her dry hands. “That is more than enough. Trying is always more than enough.”

Though he tried to keep more tears from slipping out, he couldn’t.

Words weren’t often the most effective comforter for him, but at one of his lowest points, he had little else than to listen to her, and it stung like disinfectant on a dozen paper cuts. “I love you,” he crackled at her, palming away his own tears around a clogged nose and a rising headache.

“I know,” she said. “I love you too.”

* * *

When he returned to his bedroom, Donghyuck was sitting cross-legged on his floor mattress, looking disheveled and groggy, yet still managing an expression of concern and regret. Silently, with the knowledge that they had at least an hour and a half before they had to get up again, Renjun tugged his pillow off the bunk and climbed under Donghyuck’s covers instead. He pulled Donghyuck down with him and sunk into the childhood familiarity.

“How are you feeling?” Donghyuck muttered as soon as he’d settled down again, knuckles grazing against Renjun’s bunched up hands.

“Sick,” Renjun said. “Don’t let me take it out on anyone, please.”

Donghyuck nodded against his pillow, now bunched up against Renjun’s. “What do you want me to do?”

“Punch me.”

Donghyuck gave a tired huff of laughter. “I’ll say your name,” he said and closed his eyes, lending his compromise an air of finality.

“Okay,” Renjun murmured, and willed himself to fall asleep as well.

* * *

_You look great today!_

_You’re going to do amazing._

_Hang in there~_

_You’ve worked hard._

_I’m grateful for you._

_You’ll be a really great leader._

_Keep breathing, stay hydrated!_

Renjun’s throat closed as he smoothed out the new slip of paper between his thumbs, ink dry and unable to smudge. All the little notes were only two sets of handwriting, and if Renjun weren’t so overwhelmed, he would have been having a very fun time trying to figure out which script was Jaemin’s and which was Jeno’s. One was a little more cramped and fluid while the other was neat and rounded, and the one in Renjun’s grip was the latter.

_I’ll like you no matter what._

He’d found it when he’d gone to retrieve his backpack from the guard room, the slip in the divot of his backpack where the zipper sagged. The others he’d found among various things—folded around the subsection lip of his mallet bag, one wrapped around the stick of a plastic mallet and another around a woolen mallet, on top and taped gently under the marimba cover, one in the first plastic sleeve of his music binder, and miraculously one in his jacket pocket he’d been wearing the entire time.

Donghyuck stood next to him as he tried to process this particular note in the near middle of the band room. He was obviously trying not to laugh at both Renjun’s reaction and the fact that this was something Jeno and Jaemin had done at all.

Renjun rubbed at his eyes before the heat could flood them, and carefully folded the slip to secure it in his jacket pocket. “I’m going to kiss them,” Renjun mumbled, simultaneously upset, overly-warm, confused, and exceptionally happy. Jeno had slipped out of his grip repeatedly throughout the morning ever since he started finding the notes, preferring to grin at him from a safe distance like a coward.

Donghyuck first gave a snort at the confession, then jerked his chin to over Renjun’s shoulder. “Jaemin o’clock.”

Whipping around, he saw Jaemin freeze like prey in a hunter’s sights, just over an arm’s length away. He had one hand on the strap of his backpack and the other hooked around the corner of the locker room hallway as if he’d been intent on sneaking.

“No you don’t,” Renjun told him, and Jaemin retracted his hand from the wall and smiled.

“How many did you find?” Jaemin asked, taking a step closer if only to make way for someone else who wanted to slip by.

“When did you do this?” he asked instead of answering, reaching to snag Jaemin’s strap adjuster, and Jaemin stepped without forcing him to tug, now properly in reach.

“Before zero,” Jaemin said, looking less like someone caught and more warm by the second. “We had time to sneak into your stuff. Didn’t look at anything though,” he promised, and leaned to pat Renjun’s tense hand, tilting his head to check a different angle on his expression.

Renjun had had his stuff gone through before, but never like this. There was a difference behind hiding his textbook and leaving encouraging… love notes? Is that what those were?

“Oh—oh no,” Jaemin chirped, and immediately shifted his body at an angle to hide a slip of tears as Renjun pawed at his eyes. Donghyuck followed suit until they were a small wall. His nose was starting to run like this, headache building again, but he tried to steady himself before he had a breakdown. Even if he had a little human barrier, anyone looking closely would be able to tell he was crying. “Was it too much? I’m sorry. We thought it would be nice.”

“It’s _so _much,” Renjun moaned into his free palm, and he felt Jaemin’s cool fingers touch his elbow gently, unsure. “Thank-k you.” He felt ridiculous. He’d felt ridiculous and agitated all morning. Had downright angled his entire body away from Sarwendah on sight, trying to regulate his emotions enough that he didn’t hurl onto thousands of dollars of equipment. Every new note he found made him nervous in a completely contrary way, tugging on his insides in fitful butterflies of bewilderment. “They’re very nice,” he choked out, still unable to look Jaemin in the eyes for trying to catch every threatening tear before it fell.

Jaemin tugged him in all at once and gave him a strong squeeze, one arm around his waist and the other pressing up between his shoulder blades like everyone could magically intuit that was the pressure point that got him to relax more. He couldn’t even hug him properly back because Jaemin was wearing his backpack. “You’re going to be late for class if you don’t leave soon,” Jaemin said gently, then let go. “I don’t know how many you found, but I think there are about twenty if none of them got lost.”

“Twenty,” Renjun wheezed, finally catching his eye, and Jaemin beamed at him.

“Holy shit,” Donghyuck murmured, but reached to tug on Renjun’s elbow just to get him moving. “I got him, Jaemin.”

“Mm!” Renjun got one last look at Jaemin giving a tiny wave. “Hang in there!”

God. He didn’t understand how he got into this position.

Five steps away and Jaemin disappearing into the hallway, Donghyuck said, “Thank you for not kissing him in front of me.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

_I’ve been so happy to get to know you._

_You played beautifully when I heard you before._

_You can afford to be confident._

_You’ve worked so hard and it shows. I think you’re amazing._

* * *

In his second to last class, he had to excuse himself to sit outside and stave off a wave of nausea. His hands shook as he pulled the notes out of his pockets and reread them one by one.

* * *

_I’ll be holding your hands in spirit since you need them to play._

_It’ll all be worth it no matter what._

_It’s okay to be stressed, but lets relax after, okay?_

* * *

“Renjun!”

He sucked in a breath, but turned for Linnie striding up in her long purple t-shirt and crooked smile. She held out her hand, wherein lay two slips of paper. “I think these are yours.” Donghyuck chuckled next to him as Renjun picked it from her palm, fond of the circumstance and his flush in embarrassment. “You’re going to do great. You’ve got this.”

_I love your smile most, but I’ll be there regardless of your expression._

_I would love to hear you play again. Whenever!_

Love.

* * *

His hands shook the moment he was no longer holding onto the straps of his backpack, but he didn’t spend any more time in the band room than absolutely necessary, slipping back outside to where Donghyuck, Jeno, and Jaemin waited. Jaemin sat against the drama building wall, thumbs rubbing into his bent knees as he watched Jeno pick his saber out of his guard bag. Donghyuck looked to be asking questions to Jeno.

All three of them looked up when Renjun closed the back door behind him.

Before any of them could so much as say a word, he beat them to it, sagging his shoulder into the wall. “I’m going to vomit.”

He got three separate responses. He got Donghyuck’s hand at the back of his neck, pressing into the tension bleeding everywhere. He got Jeno saying, “Would it make you feel better?” which he’d really never thought of before. And Jaemin, who made a sound and said, “It’ll be over soon.”

He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to actually get sick—he hadn’t eaten much of anything the entire day out of fear. He felt hazy and faded and wired all at once and he wanted it to be over. He didn’t know how to respond to either thought from his boys so he simply said, “I’ve never been this stressed in my life.” and let Donghyuck tuck him into a half embrace, Donghyuck’s chin hooked over his shoulder.

The proximity and affection took some of the edge out of the acid eating a hole through his entire upper organs.

“Do you need to talk about it, or do you need a distraction?” Jeno asked, soft and letting Donghyuck be in charge of the physical comfort. He zipped up his bag and as he made eye-contact, Renjun noticed for the first time that he’d done a rosier pink look for his eyes.

Jaemin’s was more subtle—a dim, warm eye. “Or silence?” Jaemin posited.

“Distraction,” Renjun croaked, and Jeno straightened to walk for the patch of lawn, already testing his grip on his saber.

“I think everyone’s showing up,” Jaemin segued easily, unfurling his long legs against the pavement. “We could go get something after.”

“I haven’t forgotten about promising hotpot. Jaemin and I were talking about it,” Jeno said over the _thwip_ of taped metal hitting his bare palm. The absence of gloves made Renjun blink, but then he was catching up on the words.

“Oh. I had,” he admitted.

“We were thinking we could delay that for after Donghyuck leaves us,” Jaemin said, thumbing the zipper of his backpack. “Just so we don’t keep stealing you away from him.” He said it brightly, and Renjun could hear a breath of a chuckle next to his ear.

“You’re asking him on a date,” Donghyuck said, clarifying coolly, and Renjun couldn’t even begin to _try_ curbing a blush.

“Chenle’s going to be disappointed,” Jeno said, and Renjun watched him release his saber into the air, witnessing its balanced, silver and white spin, but still needing to resist a cringe when Jeno caught it.

“Have you been for hotpot before, Jaemin?” Renjun asked, and tapped Donghyuck’s ear to signal that he could stop paying attention to his neck. Donghyuck eased off and moved back around to sit next to Jaemin instead.

Jaemin shook his head, and Renjun, feeling a little more at ease even if for just a few more minutes, smiled. “You _won’t_ be disappointed.”

* * *

Sarwendah was slotted to go first, so it was nearly twenty minutes after most of the grounds had cleared out when he was called in. She wasn’t in the room. It was just their head tech and Ms. M looking over Renjun’s neat portfolio.

Ruolan had scoffed when he’d told his family at dinner he had to create a resume for section leader. “God,” she’d said with her soup spoon halfway to her mouth, “your band takes itself way too seriously.”

He couldn’t argue against this—all of the members were self-aware. Half of them stuck with it for the social life, the experience of kinship coming from going through what felt like only partially-consensual torture. On most days, everyone had complaints about Ms. M or the respective techs. There was always a begrudging respect hand-in-hand with blatant annoyance. And just a slight mix of fear. It was amazing what atmosphere could do to their instincts.

He greeted them as he took his position behind the marimba, they greeted him, they asked how he was, he lied, they asked some questions about his portfolio, he answered, they asked if he felt confident, and he told the truth.

“I’ve worked hard so I can be.”

The nausea had gone passive and sour in his chest and throat, allowing him some form of peace instead of threatening to pitch him over the edge every half second.

His hands did not shake around his mallets when he started, and did at no point during or between sections. He didn’t properly look up to see if they were bored or not, though he had to look up consistently as a part of the image and routine. He looked at the clock instead, where the drum major would have been on the field. And where Jeno would be next year.

His nerves were humming by the end of the field show, hands not quite aching yet, but feeling somewhat slippery. He patted his hands on his shorts, heard the crinkle of paper, centered himself.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said the tech. “What is the tape for?”

“It keeps my bandaids from slipping. It’s just for practice so my hands aren’t as bad for shows,” Renjun said and took the opportunity to adjust the tape on his ring finger where it was loose.

“How long do you practice for?” Ms. M asked.

Renjun just wanted to play his last piece. The questions chipped away at his endurance and made him feel like he was running out of time for his stability, but he answered honestly, “Anything from two to four hours preparing for this on top of regular practice. Which is why I need the tape.”

He did not look up for a reaction, busying himself readjusting his mallets. He looked up when he was ready.

“Why did you pick this song?” asked the tech.

“I’ve been told my weakness is emotion.” Given the day he’d been having, it felt more true than ever. “I thought it would be a good way to show improvement.” He felt stuffy. His stomach was pinching.

“Start when you’re ready, then.”

He tried to remember Donghyuck’s critique, not losing himself so deeply that he forgot about the expressions he was making. He tried to feel emotions that were distant from him—peace, thoughtfulness, sweetness. It took a proper wrench from the tight, agitated space between his lungs, but he could almost feel it in his knuckles an he started the first notes. He had more familiar access to those feelings than he did, say, two weeks ago, but performing it in private or for a show were emotional tasks distinctly different from doing so in front of two people deliberately assessing him.

He did his best.

And though he wasn’t shaking during it, he was by the end. He slipped his mallets back into his draped mallet bag and let his hands hang at his sides, flexing the tension out of his achey tendons and pinpoints of pain.

“Would you like to put the marimba back while we talk for a moment?” asked Ms. M, not showing any sort of emotion aside from calm interest. “You can grab a friend.” 

Renjun mutely nodded.

* * *

He pulled Donghyuck to help him, trying not to collapse halfway up the rising steps as they lifted and pulled it up the tiers. Donghyuck was steady and calm and repeated Jaemin’s same sentiment as earlier under his breath. “It’s almost over,” he promised. Renjun gave a jerky nod, and that was it. That was all he got before he was sitting at the bottom ledge, hands pressed between his knees, feeling small as Ms. M and the tech sat on their stools, but not willing to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room.

When they turned to him properly, he released his breath and sat a little more upright, the split plastic edging of the tier digging into the bottom of his left thigh.

Ms. M was a sturdy woman who smiled only one-on-one, and even then she usually opted for firmness. He’d gone to her once to talk about missing a fundraising event for his mother’s birthday and the strain of bringing bad news to her almost brought him to spontaneous tears.

The tech, on the other hand, gave off vibes like he lived with his parents—and not in the way Ruolan did. He was a highly specialized person with only minor responsibilities outside of it if his anecdotes were anything to go off of. He was good at what he did but often unfair without reason like the people saying pointless and avoidable pain was essential for growth.

Sitting in front of both of them was a small, personal hell.

Ms. M was the one who spoke, setting his folder on her lap and giving him an expression of warmth, the edge of her mouth crinkling like a smile. Confused, his stomach pitched and squeezed, unsure what it might mean in this situation.

“Renjun, we’re not sure yet,” she said, thumbing the edge of his portfolio with a repeated _thwup, thwup,_ “but how do you feel about something different?” 

Renjun’s mind immediately spun trying to comprehend what she could mean by that. Did they want him to sightread? Transpose something in front of them? Try again next week because his audition was so bad?

“How do you feel about being co-section leader with Sarwen?”

Her lips formed the words like they were the easiest things in the world. 

The only things left to freeze were his heart and brain as he sat rod still. The first thing cracked over. Plummeted. Flooded the pit of his stomach with an audible, palpable, fitful heartbeat. The room dulled out like it had been dipped in acid.

“Neither of you applied for co-leadership,” the tech said, adjusting forward on his stool, “but the pit’s a large…”

Renjun tuned the tech out as he continued giving their reasons. His faculties were lagging even as he tried to jerk his mind into functional thoughts. Slow, too shocked to be angry, too shocked to feel anything but the painful twinge behind his eyes where a headache wrapped around his nerves.

He couldn’t work with Sarwendah. 

She wouldn’t cooperate. She would undermine him every chance she got. If he snapped, she was bitter enough to get him in trouble for it. There would be no achievement in gaining the title. Everything would be worse. And not only that, but the section would suffer from it. It ought to be one of them or the other. Not both.

He pressed his knees harder over his knuckles, trying not to spiral in front of the two people who needed to see his potential for control.

His chest felt so tight he was sure he wouldn’t be able to inhale if he tried to breathe.

His heart pinched. He felt like he was drowning.

“I’d do it,” he said.

He felt so detached from himself it could have been from anyone else. The room felt massive around him. Stacked metal and plastic chairs on towering racks, blanketed bells, a ceiling scraped by walls of trophies. University pennants from alumni pinned and crammed onto walls without shelves to hold accolades. A feeble analog clock. Its doleful clicks.

“Can you two work together, do you think?”

He could hear laughter just outside the door he’d leave through, a jumble of tones. 

One of them was Jaemin.

“I’d do my best.”

His fingers were going numb between his knees.

“That’s what we needed to hear.”

He’d hope so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> co-leadership for large sections is not uncommon  
nonetheless, I am sorry.
> 
> [curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   
[tellonym](https://tellonym.me/solananne)


	26. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazingly, no trigger warnings for this Jaemin chapter, but he is really...not okay for this first part. So, as always, proceed with caution and take care ♡

He didn’t even so much as fiddle with her desk, his shirt, the straps of his backpack as he waited for her to look up from her computer. He was seven minutes early to class and there were other students reluctantly making their way in, and he was trying to stand still while anxiety forced his heart into the shape of a cymbal.

“Jaemin,” she said, finally looking up, and the way she said his name was so very American that he almost always smiled in response, but not this morning, “what is it?”

“Can you mark me absent for this period?”

The request didn’t register in her expression for two seconds. It was two seconds he was forced to resist pulling his bottom lip between his teeth and gnawing it raw.

“I…can’t do that, no,” she said, slow, and she stared at him, trying to see past his eyes. “If you mean marking you absent while you’re still in class.”

“Yes,” he said, and something was trembling in his throat, so he swallowed. “I don’t care if it counts against me.” He took a breath where her expression didn’t waver past confusion and concern. “If you can’t, then I’ll skip the school day, but if you can, that would be really important—” His voice strained, and he swallowed again. “—to me.”

Time dragged as she continued to look at him—not like he’d grown another head but like she was lapsing into being unsettled and trying to hide it. “I’ll mark you absent if you talk to me after class,” she said, and Jaemin nodded and turned heel before he could gasp out relief in front of her. The confrontation shuddered through him, and though he struggled to cope with the idea of sitting in his chair so closely to one of his peers, he managed it anyway by drawing his arms and legs in and praying his tablemate wouldn’t so much as look at him.

“Good morning,” she said, and he let out a breath and smiled at her. 

“Morning.”

At least she left it at that.

* * *

The class went fine. Mrs. Young didn’t look his way unnecessarily, and he didn’t have to excuse himself to lie face-down on the quad’s lawn and cry.

He’d left his phone in Yuqi’s car, but the fear was catching up him. He drew comfort in the way Yukhei’s t-shirt felt on him, the smell of his borrowed deodorant, and the weight of his eyelashes where Yuqi had given him the lightest layer of mascara. He tried to immerse himself in the instruction Mrs. Young was giving, to shove the strain out of his body for just 40 minutes, and then he could repeat the process all over again.

He didn’t even try to slip out of the classroom without speaking to her like wanted to.

It was once again a battle of not showing any anxious tics in front of her as she leaned back on her desk and considered him.

“You know I’ve seen your record,” she said, and dread suffocated his organs in tight webbing.

His throat worked, he swallowed, the panic was setting in. “Please don’t say anything.” His voice cracked.

What he saw in her eyes was sorrow, pain, sympathy. “Jaemin—”

“I’m so close,” he interrupted, whispering because if he put voice in his words he’d start crying. “I can do this. Please, Mrs. Young, don’t say anything.”

“Are you in danger?” she asked, and he really wished she hadn’t.

He shook his head, jerky, forced to lie when he said, “No.” Forced to see the resignation in her eyes when she accepted his lie despite the both of them knowing.

“Okay,” she said, soft and quiet. “Okay, Jaemin. Get to band, then.”

If they’d had time, he would have liked to fall into her arms and dissolve into two components only: salt and blood.

* * *

He went through this process three more times before lunch hit—the only emotional grace given him occurring when Renjun and Donghyuck caught him on his way to the instrument lockers. It was somewhat jarring to see Renjun cry when it was a reaction he’d been trying to stave off for the majority of the day so far.

Just the previous night, when it was only Yuqi, Yukhei, and him in the car, they’d woken up his phone two miles from anyone’s home. Yukhei had gotten out so Jaemin didn’t have to hear his notifications blow up, texting out a short message they’d agreed on before.

**To: Eomma**

_All safe! Sleeping over at a classmate’s._

_Love you!_

He didn’t really have to imagine how badly she took that.

* * *

The notes idea had occurred to him at four in the morning, Yukhei having accidentally woken him up before heading out for a run. When he’d shown up early to the band room with his plan mulling over in his head, Jeno was there, scrolling through his phone with his earbuds in.

He’d agreed easily, immediately. He’d sat down with a notebook so he could write on the papers Jaemin had cut out while Yukhei had been in the shower. Jeno had been so close their thighs had touched, and he’d been warm and calm. It had been easy to forget about his parents and only think about Renjun.

Renjun, who looked peaky at lunch like merely using his brain was doing him a great disservice. Jaemin wondered if they could go a day where all three of them were intact and functional. He wanted to breathe that potential in and hold it in his mouth.

The lunch Renjun and Donghyuck shared with him was exquisitely kind, packed by Renjun’s mother, and Renjun had been able to eat three bites before surrendering and setting his head in his arms with his leg jiggling under the table.

“You’re almost there,” Jaemin had told him, thinking about his own ticking clock. At least one of them had to have a good ending, right? Otherwise it was unjust, and realistically, the universe had to give that good ending to Renjun.

Jaemin wasn’t preparing hopes and dreams for what going home would be like—a positive result was a nearly hysterical thought.

So Renjun. Renjun had to get what he wanted. Things would be balanced that way.

* * *

For what it was worth, he felt he had a remarkable skill in willing his anxieties away when the people who mattered most to him were around. After Renjun disappeared into the band room, it was just Donghyuck, Jeno, and him for the next few minutes at least. Somehow, they ended up talking about the difference between funny senior pranks and _not_ funny senior pranks, debating whether the previous year’s decision to feed laxatives to the immense gaggle of quad geese had been the former or the latter.

By the time Mark and Yukhei showed up, Donghyuck was emphatic about the range of stupidity between peacocks and turkeys and Jaemin was trying to stifle his laugh in Jeno’s shoulder, the boy having long settled next to him to offer his proximity. He steadied him in a way that wasn't quite explicable. He smelled like boy and deodorant and the slightest traces of chlorine under color guard sweat. Not quite clean after a day of living, but far from gross.

“Yuqi went to work,” Yukhei said as he dropped his long limbs down to sit with them, and Mark very tentatively accepted the only space that was left in the little circle: between Jeno and Donghyuck. Jaemin watched the way he wiped his palm on the knee of his jeans, his tiny flick of a glance at Donghyuck that lingered too long and was ignored, and thought there was something sometimes exciting about not knowing quite what was going on inside someone’s mind.

Mark was oddly not very forthcoming on most things despite being committed to honesty, and Jaemin knew it was in part because he rarely, if ever, knew for sure what was going on. Whatever Mark might be going through, it probably looked a lot like a muddled mess of confusion.

When Renjun opened the door to gather Donghyuck, he appeared ill on his feet and didn’t look anyone in the face. Jaemin blew out a breath of air.

“He’s good, right?” Mark asked carefully. “Like, he’s good at his instrument?”

“Very,” Jeno said, the confidence in his voice leaving no room for negotiation.

“Were you stressed when you tried out for drum major?”

Jaemin’s question sat in the air for a full few seconds, Jeno looking at him now with the briefest scrunch in his eyebrows before folding into something much closer to a smile. “I don’t think so. I barely remember it.”

Donghyuck reemerged with a sigh and a tug of his ear. “He’s nervous.”

“Are you?” Yukhei asked, and Donghyuck laughed.

“Yes, definitely.” Sitting back down, he respected appropriate distance between himself and Mark, but unfurled his legs so his feet sat in the middle of their circle. “He deserves this, but literally nothing has convinced me that band’s not complete shit.”

Normally, Jaemin might laugh, but—“If he doesn’t get it?”

Donghyuck sucked in a breath, held it, then let it go, tilting his head back. “Um. I don’t know, honestly.” He hung his head forward and stared at his shoelaces. “This is harder than he’s worked for anything.”

“You know,” Mark said, and Donghyuck looked at him out of the corner of his eye, “when you study for a test in a class you’ve been doing badly in and you still fail the test?”

Jaemin gnawed at his lip, stomach squeezing. 

“And you kinda just give up on the class? Because what’s the point?” Mark mused.

“Renjun won’t do that,” Donghyuck said, though the confidence in his voice wasn’t as bold as Jeno’s had been when he vouched for Renjun’s ability. “Not in band. Because he’s already good at it, you know? It…it would be more like applying to a top university and only getting into a community college.”

The four of them let these words turn over in the air, barely having time to say anything more before the door was opening and Renjun was just. Standing there. Eyes not on them. Looking straight forward.

He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes filled with tears and he turned toward the grass, leaving them behind as he strode in the other direction. His hands were coming up already to shove at his tears, though that was all Jaemin could see before Donghyuck was muttering, “Shit.” and fumbling to his feet.

It took five more seconds for Jaemin to realize he was feeling sick, and Jeno’s head was tilted back against the brick of the drama building. Renjun and Donghyuck were already out of sight, the sun sweating down on the grass springing up from the tread of their shoes.

Jaemin, like Jeno, would not follow after Renjun. It would have been as if Jaemin had encroached on Jeno’s breakdown on the pool or if Jeno had followed Jaemin for the phone call. They weren’t the ones to be everywhere for Renjun yet. If Donghyuck weren’t there, maybe then.

And the truth was, Jaemin didn’t know Renjun so well yet to assume he’d be wanted along with Donghyuck.

There was a time and place, Jaemin supposed, and he would sit and wait with Jeno until Renjun came back.

Those feelings, though, did not make him feel any less nausea. Renjun wouldn’t have reacted like that if things had gone well. Dread was filling him slowly vein by vein, tangling with what he’d already been feeling all day.

“We should…” Yukhei said, voice already clotted with sympathetic tears. He simply was that way. He cried when someone cried on television, no matter how shitty the acting, and was trying not to cry now. “Mark, should we go pick up ice cream? Or something? Do you guys know what Renjun likes?”

“He got ube when we went for frozen yoghurt,” Jeno said, and Jaemin was caught up once again over how keen his observational skills were. Jaemin wouldn’t even be able to say what he’d gotten _himself._

He wondered why, if Jeno could remember so many things, he couldn’t remember what his audition had been like.

Jeno was pulling out his wallet, though, and handing over a few bills as Yukhei and Mark stood up, saying what flavors would work for him and the kids. They didn’t bother asking Jaemin what he wanted because they knew better than he did himself. Ben and Jerry’s was the splurge of choice, though if Jeno had really handed over thirty, it really wouldn’t be. Again, Jaemin would have laughed, but he felt he couldn’t.

“How much is your allowance?” Jaemin teased when Mark and Yukhei had turned away, and the corner of Jeno’s curled mouth lifted.

“It’s not that, really,” he said. “I’ve saved up a lot from it because I’ve never really had anything to spend on.”

The _until now_ felt unspoken, and Jeno’s earnest need to pay for anything that involved him was endearing and excusable. Especially since Jaemin had nothing to offer. One difference between them was that Jeno had all of his basic needs provided for, and Jaemin was terribly aware that he shouldn’t have been an exception. Shouldn’t _be_ an exception.

As they fell into silence as they waited, Jaemin reached for Jeno’s hand and investigated every finger. The swell of each knuckle and every dip between. He pinched them there, feeling Jeno’s breath against his cheek as he kept his head down. Jeno’s pinky was especially knuckle-y, and the backs of his hands were scarred, the palms callused.

Jaemin had a strap tan around his neck from his saxophone but very little else from his tool of choice. Jeno was particularly colorful, and his hand moved for him whenever Jaemin prompted it to.

“The bruises,” Jaemin said, and Jeno didn’t reply.

He didn’t let himself think before raising the green and yellow marring to his lips and pressing a kiss there. The responding kiss to his cheek made him hold his breath, his own lips still pressed to Jeno’s warm skin as Jeno kept his mouth under his eye—not brief, not fleeting. Soft and warm and so tender that for a moment, Jaemin almost slipped up and let every anxiety of the day seize him and make him bawl.

When he lowered Jeno’s hand, Jeno’s lips drifted off his cheekbone, dragging for a single moment, and Jaemin had to tell himself to breathe.

He looked out onto the lawn, afraid that if he turned his head to look at Jeno, he would kiss him, and he didn’t think he was ready. “I really like you, Lee Jeno,” he said instead, with every intention of saying his name like that, and laced his fingers with his.

Jeno hummed, warm and low, and squeezed Jaemin’s hand in his. “I like you too.”

* * *

When Renjun returned to them with Donghyuck, the quiet between them had fallen slow and soft until anything hard felt warm. Jeno had tucked into Jaemin’s shoulder, this time, so he rose first, picking himself to his feet.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked.

Renjun’s eyes were rimmed with pink and flushed red, cheeks barely shining in places he didn’t manage to wipe, and he still looked shaky but obviously more okay than he had been while neither of them were witness. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come back.

He fell into Jeno’s arms and did this sweet thing where he pressed his cheek into Jeno’s chest and screwed up his mouth. Donghyuck said nothing, standing back a little, and Jaemin stood as well for if Renjun just so happened to want two.

“Mark and Yukhei went to get ice cream,” Jeno murmured into Renjun’s hair. “Do you want to go gather the kids with us?”

Renjun nodded and croaked a stuffy, “Yes.” He let go, then, and moved onto Jaemin like it was a fixed expectation.

Jaemin had never hugged him before. Renjun wasn’t small, precisely, but he felt small and just as aggressive in his affection, squeezing Jaemin’s bones. He felt Renjun’s warmth weave through him just as Jeno’s had, and somewhere along the small, pinched state of his heart, they knotted.

“They’re considering putting me with Sarwen as co-section leader,” Renjun muttered into his collar bone, and the warmth was gone.

Jaemin didn’t know how to speak.

He squeezed Renjun tighter.

“Oh Renjun,” he said because that’s what his heart was speaking, “I’m sorry.”

Renjun nodded and let go, sucking in a breath so harsh he coughed into his elbow. “God,” he said, “I’m so upset.” His voice was rough, but he looked like he was trying to bounce back and throw up a few walls. Jaemin let him, and seemingly so did Jeno as they gathered their bags and made their way around the corner of the building to cross the quad.

“I just—have they actually fucking _seen _us ever be friendly to each other?” Renjun asked the air, and Jaemin thought this reaction was familiar in a way. This process of using frustration to vent things wasn’t so odd. Mark did it, Yuqi did it, his mom did it, but Renjun seemed a part of the two who did it in a way that didn’t target anyone.

Jaemin listened.

“There’s more than just a—a big _section_ that goes into these things. It’s not just about dispersing responsibility it’s about how well the two people work together and he’s the—the fucking tech and does he even know? What goes on in his section?” Renjun threw out his hand and hit Jeno’s hip on accident, immediately retracting his limbs. “Sorry.”

Jeno laughed and reached for the same hand, getting his fingers snug between Renjun’s. Like a natural process, he offered his other hand for Jaemin, too. What came in a pair made way for three, and Jaemin was beginning to accept that he wasn’t an option. None of them were an option.

“Maybe they’ll rethink it,” Jeno said, rolling with Renjun’s emotional turn-over.

“Maybe Sarwen will pitch a fit,” Donghyuck said, sounding infinitely more bitter than Renjun currently was.

“That’s something she’ll do,” Jeno said, and Jaemin had almost forgotten he knew her. Was neighbors with her.

“Is she mean to you, too?” Renjun asked, turning his face to look at Jeno and letting him lead him as they walked.

Jeno seemed to think about it, pushing a breath out of his noise. “Yeah, I guess she was. More mean _at_ me, though.”

“Huh,” said Renjun, wrinkling his nose and turning back to front. He let out a sigh, slouched, then straightened up again. “God,” he said and little else after that until Donghyuck piped up as they passed the front gates.

“How was sleeping over at Yukhei’s, Jaemin?”

Jaemin startled, not expecting the attention to ever turn his way. “Uh. Can someone text him, actually? Let us know we’re going to the pool?” He could feel the stress trying to crash into him and attempted to hold it off for just a little longer.

“Yeah, I got it,” Jeno said, and took both his hands back like life only made way for equal opportunity and nothing more. Renjun made a noise—something like a protest—but received only a smile from Jeno for his effort. “You two hold hands, then,” he suggested, and Donghyuck finally pitched in his noise of discomfort at their affections.

“You guys are unbearable,” he griped and skipped up ahead a few steps before Renjun sniped, “What’s going on with you and Mark, then?” and then Donghyuck was _running._ Actually running away from them.

Renjun laughed from his chest, and Jeno was looking up and smiling, and it wasn’t the first time Jaemin saw that bad events didn’t have to ruin everything around them, but it still felt so incredibly strange to him. To see Renjun go through all these stages and come out laughing while reaching for his hand.

Jaemin held onto his fingers tightly and found himself in the middle again when Jeno reclaimed his hand, all three of them watching Donghyuck slip through the poolside gate. “Coward,” Renjun sighs, warm.

“So there is something going on,” Jeno mused.

“Oh, definitely,” Renjun said.

“With Mark, too,” Jaemin offered up, and Renjun gave the loudest hum of thought that it made Jaemin laugh on instinct for the first time the entire day.

“You look handsome, by the way,” Renjun said, completely off-hand and out of nowhere, Jaemin having not realized he’d drawn both of their eyes in his small fit.

Jaemin didn’t know what to do with himself. He just swallowed around a smile and laughed again. “I really like you guys,” he said, easy, harmless out of his throat. One of the worst days of his week so far and they’d still managed to make him smile and laugh. He didn’t want to let go of their hands.

“It’s mutual,” Renjun said, confidence all around—looping from Jeno about Renjun’s talent to Jaemin from Renjun. Confidence resonated in charming ways in both of their voices.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He really didn’t.

But the smile was instinctual, and he wanted to let it stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A breather before Jeno's chapter ♡ thank you guys for all of your patience ;;  
Also _god_ thank you for all your support and comments. I read every single one. I'm just so SO slow at chipping away at them. Know I see them, I love them, and they make me smile.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	27. Jeno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There shouldn't be any trigger warnings for this chapter, but if you think there should be, _please_ let me know what I can warn. It is absolutely heavy, I believe, so as always, tread with caution. And, as always, there's comfort to follow up.
> 
> Please take care and stay safe during the multiple stressors and injustices during this time. Be kind to others as well as yourself, and be humble.

Jisung had his ankles crossed at the poolside, chin tipped back against the sun and skin actively a target for the sun as Chenle paced behind him, book in hand. As Jeno let go of Jaemin’s hand to circle over to them, he only caught some words: “…prevent undesirable outcomes by limiting what the superintelligence can do. This might involve placing the superintellignece in an environment where it is unable to—bleh. Jeno, hi.”

“Hi,” he said, coming up close enough to tilt the cover so he could see. A pen-detailed owl stared back at him from the white cover. “Isn’t this college-level?” Across the span of the pool, he could see one of the boys put their hand on the bleachers and immediately make a loud sound of rejection, rerouting to the shade the changing rooms cast. The heat was nearly intolerable, punishing Jeno and Jaemin both for wearing jeans.

“It was in the library,” Chenle said as Jeno dropped to a crouch and nudged Jisung’s face toward him. The bruise unfurled nastily across his face like a blotchy band, and his nose tingled in sympathy as he tried to suppress a replay unfurling in his memory’s eye.

“In the school library?” Jeno asked, not quite checked in as he sighed, tight, and Jisung pouted at him with a pathetic and somehow defiant gaze.

“Community. It’s got parallels, you know? To humans? This section talks about preventing ends we don’t want when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. Creating limitations like. Curfew.”

“The AI don’t have curfew,” said Jisung, bringing his own hand up to shield his nose from Jeno’s eyes. “Just boxes.”

“You reduce their capabilities enough and they can never grow beyond that.”

Jeno looked up and squinted at Chenle, the boy’s black hair burning in the daylight. “This isn’t a metaphor for me, is it? You know I’m trying.”

_“No,” _Chenle said, watching as Jeno stood up with a scrawl of horror paling his face. “I was trying to—I just meant we got to talking philosophy you took so long. I’m reading a—a really dry book out of _boredom.”_

Jeno laughed and adjusted his bags so they dug into his shoulder less, then brought his hand up to pull Chenle’s face toward him and press an annoying kiss to his temple. “Mark and Yukhei are getting ice cream,” he said and let go so Chenle could rub at his hairline. “Renjun might not get the position he wants.”

“Shit. You’re not serious,” Chenle said, knowing Jeno was.

“Is he okay?” Jisung asked, twisted to look up at Jeno with wide, empathetic eyes.

Renjun, dipped in the changing room shadow and out of the September sun, was smiling. Jeno’s chest squeezed under the pressure of relief, appreciation, awe, and something strange, difficult. Shame, Jeno thought, that Renjun could be so resilient and himself so…Jeno sucked in a breath. “He’s taking it well right now. Go make him laugh while I get changed?”

Jisung was already swinging his legs out of the water and using Jeno like a piece of furniture to steady him. “Sure,” Chenle said, slapping his book closed and leaving Jeno unprotected against the sun and the disturbed water.

Letting out the breath he’d held, he followed after them, taking in the way Jaemin held his hand against Renjun’s knee like he was wont to do, the way Renjun turned his face up to greet Chenle back in Mandarin. Renjun tucked his legs in to make space for Chenle dropping into a criss cross in front of him, Jisung taking the side Donghyuck was on, and there was no one to stop Jaemin from reaching out to graze Jeno’s ankle with his fingertips.

_Are you okay?_ Jaemin mouthed at him, a sweet smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.

Jeno would have liked to know whether the universe pulled just the right people toward him without him knowing. Whether he was attracted especially to the ones who could see him. If he’d been quiet enough for so long that he could just barely catch the traces of the world telling him he should look at these two boys in particular. 

Jaemin to ask him if he was feeling okay in the midst of someone else struggling. Renjun to show him glimpse of how he might crash without the entire world shattering around him.

He felt fragility in that moment with Jaemin’s kind fingers circling his ankle and Renjun throwing his head back in a laugh as Donghyuck said something snide and clever. Somehow, that feeling of fragility transformed into a smile. It stretched in his chest first, broadening his lungs for a brief, throbbing moment, then took over his lips and eyes, and Jaemin squinted at him in his own smile.

_Yes,_ he mouthed back and gripped the changing room doorknob to escape with the sunshine trapped in his chest and Renjun’s laugh swirling behind his eyes.

When the door closed behind him, he blinked in the dull artificially-lit emptiness of the room yawning ahead of him. He had one moment to exhale before Chenle’s mirthful shriek pierced the slim gap underneath the door and pinged across the metal lockers.

Jeno pressed his hand to his mouth and laughed, feeling the tension split his chest in two and make way for something placid and strange and bright. What he was meant to do with this feeling, he wasn’t sure, but he took one task at a time, shrugging off his backpack to change.

Usually getting back into the water was something to check off his list of daily hurdles, but today, maybe he could do it just a little better. Maybe not tomorrow, but maybe today.

Using the bottommost left narrow locker in the entrance of the changing room, Jeno dropped his equipment bag and backpack, placing his phone on the wet bench behind him. There was a band of soreness stretching up his side from god knew what, and it pulled in reminder as he dragged his shirt over his head. He held the neckline between his teeth to keep it off the watery tiles as he unzipped his backpack for his swimming trunks and sunscreen.

When his phone went off in a low vibration, it took him a moment to find the hands-space to grab it. **Wong Yukhei/Lucas** flashed up at him and he picked it up without a thought.

“Hey—”

_“Jaemin’s mom is in the school parking lot. Her car.”_

In his life, Jeno had felt a diverse accruement of fears, but this one was utterly fresh to him. He dropped everything, nearly slipping on the tile to get back to the door.

“I got it,” he gasped into the speaker and lurched the door open, shoving his phone into his back pocket, call still up. Jaemin and Donghyuck were reaching poolside, unhooking their shoes as they went. As Chenle made a noise of surprise at Jeno’s shirtlessness, Jeno choked on the urge to call Jaemin’s name aloud, sweeping the parking lot beyond the fence with his eyes as he crossed the pavement to catch Jaemin’s wrist.

He’d only seen her once, knowing (suspecting) that she was Jaemin’s mom, and he doesn’t trust his ability to recognize her. It was either very promising or distinctly terrible that he couldn't see any women in his line of sight.

“What?” Jaemin said, glancing down and back up, but his eyes turning very quickly sunless.

“Your mom—”

Jeno pulled, Jaemin followed, and Jeno watched the edge of Jaemin’s expression as he turned his face around to the world around him, as if everything was crashing into him at once. Grip so tight it pressed the bones of Jeno’s fingers against each other, Jaemin let himself be led to the door of the changing room, otherwise frozen.

The door cracked open, sucking in hot air, and Donghyuck relayed the two words of information as from the far right side, past the pool fence, between the corner of the cafeteria building and the football field, Jeno saw a woman who made his heart dart up his throat and choke him.

He slipped in through the door, unmoored from Jaemin’s hand and with adrenaline surging through his arms and throat. Jaemin turned past the partition, out of sight of the doorway. One of the shower heads in that section of the changing room was still dripping, its hard-water riddled silver drooling drip after drip. Jeno heard Jaemin hit the floor and followed after him. Witnessed the way he had holed himself in the corner as small as he could be, barefoot and cramped.

With the conditions rattling inside Jeno’s skull, he first pulled his phone back into his hands and raised it to his ear. “Yukhei?”

Jaemin looked up, eyes drowning but dry, lip caught between his teeth and pressing so hard the pink turned white. Jeno stood a foot away from him, the situation so fragile that he was afraid of moving while in this blanked out headspace.

_“Yes. Where are you?”_

“Jaemin’s in the changing room. Should we stay here?”

Reaching out his hands, Jaemin asked for the phone in silence, and Jeno wouldn’t even think to deny him. He turned it on speaker phone to hear what Yukhei was saying as carefully knelt and passed it over, _“Until she leaves, maybe. I don’t—”_

_“Jeno,” _Mark said, _“stay there with him? In case she’s fucking insane and tries to get in there. I don’t know.”_

“Yeah,” Jeno said, trying to imagine doing otherwise as Jaemin’s hands closed around his own and brought the phone to rest on his knees.

“Mark?” Jaemin said, hands free now and making their way into his dark hair to tug against his roots—not hurtful, but distant and distraught. The wall dug into Jeno’s shoulder blade as he scooted up against it, angled to continue facing Jaemin. “Is the ice cream melting?”

Jeno could not fathom being in Jaemin’s position—in life, in the moment—and therefore could hardly fathom how he could have turned out like this. A boy of lamps and mirrors, receiving love and giving it immediately back, swiveling beams of light where he could focus them, worrying about the ice cream his friends had bought to comfort someone else while his mother hunted him down for the second occasion in the brief time he’d known them.

There was silence on the other end.

“I just—” began Jaemin.

_“I know,”_ said Mark. _“I know, I get it. Um, it’ll melt if we have to wait too long, but I don’t think anyone will care. If we can, if we see her and we can get over there, we can all coop up in the changing room and eat ice cream, okay?”_

“Okay,” Jaemin whispered then tried again with more voice, “Okay.”

_“We’ll call you from here, Jeno, if we need you,”_ said Yukhei again. _“See you soon.”_

_“Love you, Nana,”_ Mark said and only waited so long as to hear Jaemin say it back before hanging up.

The air was not as still as they were, rasping listlessly through the ventilation, and it took the movement against his bare skin for Jeno to remember he was shirtless. “Let me get my shirt on again,” he murmured, ready to push himself up off the floor, and Jaemin looked up away from his phone.

“No, it’s okay,” he said and a smile spread through his features, and Jeno watched, stunned as Jaemin’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m not complain—complaining.” A gasp cut through him and he tilted back his head for the fresh tears, thin throat bared. Jeno’s phone slid off his knees and Jaemin jerked out of the edge of his breakdown to catch it. His phone still hit the tile, skidding against the grout, and Jaemin’s tears hit the dry patches of floor.

Of course, Jaemin thought the phone mattered more to Jeno.

“I’m sorry, oh—oh god, I’m sorry, Jeno,” he said, weeping now, words watery as he caught up Jeno’s phone and used the hem of his t-shirt to wipe off the water. Jeno was hardly conscious of moving, cradling Jaemin’s hands in his and setting his phone aside so it was no longer an issue.

“Don’t be sorry,” he murmured, trying to find enough steadiness and warmth in his body to comfort Jaemin with just his eyes, his words, his hands. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t care about my phone.” His knees pressed uncomfortably against the tile, leftover water from the shower seeping into the fabric of his jeans.

“My mom—”

“It’s not your fault. You can’t—you can’t control these things.” It wasn’t at all similar—their mothers were utterly different—but helplessness was familiar. “You can’t beat yourself up over it. That’s not…” His words caught up to his brain, and Jeno choked on them, reaching for Jaemin instead to draw him closer. To make him feel less small, less alone. “That’s not fair,” Jeno promised into Jaemin’s hair.

Their situations weren’t at all similar, and yet.

Awkwardly, terribly, Jeno held Jaemin in a hug that was by far the worst one he’d managed to give, but Jaemin wasn’t moving out of it. Jaemin wasn’t rejecting it, so it had to be okay, face pressed into Jeno’s neck while their knees and arms proved impossible to navigate and the space over Jeno’s heart was warmed with Jaemin’s stilted breaths.

His hold tightened when a female voice encroached in on the silence, resonating outside the metal door of the changing room around the corner, but muffled enough not to be distinct.

Jeno’s mind stuttered and rushed, Jaemin’s hand a sudden claw of terror on Jeno’s jutted knee.

“Jeno,” he protested as Jeno disentangled himself, and perhaps in the moment, he pressed a kiss to Jaemin’s open palm.

“Stay.”

He turned the corner, fingers already on the button of his pants, and strained to hear anything at all beyond vague sounds as the ventilation wheezed and rattled and the shower heads behind him dripped dully.

Renjun’s voice bloomed with the sound of the doorknob being handled. “Ma’am, you can’t go in there—”

“I’m just checking—.”

Jeno kicked off his pants just as the door opened, and he had one, heart-freezing, sickening moment of making eye-contact with Jaemin’s mother. He remembered thinking they looked alike when he’d first seen her. He’d suspected, at the time, though wouldn’t dare assume, that Jaemin had something going on at home, so he’d seen her with only the barest tint of bias. Now, he couldn’t even see a single feature on her face. She was a blurry mass of emotion to him.

He felt sick.

His heart rattled in his chest.

“What the fuck?” he blurted, knowing exactly what the fuck, trying to sound indignant when all he wanted to do was not be in this situation. Not have Jaemin be in this situation. Not have to face the implications of what was going on.

He watched her pale in the washed-out lighting, her sudden gasp, and the door closing so fast it clanged and rattled the wall-wide mirror across from him.

His arms curled over his chest, blood pounding so hard he could see his vision swell and sink, feel it against his palms and forearms.

He caught his face in the reflection, petrified, and stood in a half-pool of humidity as his jeans collected water on the tiled floor.

This fear had a tangibility to it. He could almost experience the fear that she could have walked past the locker room entrance. See her walking by without a glance and rounding the corner to see Jaemin pressed into the corner. What would he have done? What could he have done?

His brain felt filled with cotton, to the point that he heard just about nothing at all, not moving, until the door opened again and Renjun peeked in.

Jeno stared at him and his fine, narrow nose. “Jeno,” Renjun said, voice half-awed, and bit the knuckle of his thumb as Jeno stood there in his compromised position, witnessed by some abusive woman he didn’t truly want to acknowledge, in plain blue boxers.

“Is she gone?” he asked in lieu of dissolving against the heat rushing to his chest and neck and ears, the petrification he still couldn’t shake. Renjun pressed his forehead to the edge of the door, stifling a laugh in the meat of his hand for a brief moment before nodding, then shaking his head.

“She left the pool,” Renjun said, voice taut with mirth and something akin to stress. Stress, still-there, still adrenaline-inducing. Renjun was tense and wired, just as Jeno was.

Jeno only moved upon hearing that, catching up his jeans and placing them in his locker instead as Renjun crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him, Jaemin’s backpack and shoes in hand. The next moment, Jaemin made himself known in the partition entryway, small, hands knotted, makeup smudged at the corner of one eye.

“Chenle stuffed your shoes in his backpack so fast,” Renjun offered by way of explanation as he placed them on the bench between him and Jeno. He lifted Jaemin’s backpack as Jaemin made his way to sit quietly on the parallel bench. “Hyuckie used this as a pillow. We don’t think she noticed it.”

Jaemin nodded, thumbing at the wet patches on his jeans, bare toes curling against the tile, and Renjun hesitated in the wheezing air. Slowly, Jeno’s pulse was making its descent as he lifted his swimming trunks from out of his backpack and ran the familiar, chlorine-bleached fabric between his fingers.

“I can’t guess,” Renjun said, keeping that same one-foot fragile distance from Jaemin, perhaps unsure just as Jeno was of what Jaemin needed or wanted right in that moment, “what you’re thinking, but I want you to know that none of us…are judging you?” He broke the barrier in the next second, sitting down on Jaemin’s same bench and setting his hand between them. Jaemin watched him, still. “You’re not anything _less_ just because there’s someone in your life like that.” Renjun’s nervous breath of laughter whispered through the hollow air. “This is really unrehearsed. I don’t know what I’m trying to say yet, really, but I care about you.” Renjun swallowed, and Jeno took his trunks and left for the showers section to trade out his boxers and give them space.

He still heard Renjun, though.

“All of you. I care about everything you are. It’s only been like, two weeks, but—hey, yeah.” Renjun voice turned muffled, and Jeno wondered if he’d been caught up in one of those terrifyingly breakable hugs from Jaemin. The kind where he’d felt he’d been given a fragile world to hold for just a moment and keep together. “You know I’m sorry right? You know—Jaemin, you know you’re more than your parents’ son?” Renjun continued, voice clogging, as Jeno pulled his trunks up and twisted his boxers between his hands.

He wondered if he could emotionally cope with seeing the vulnerability he could already feel through the air. So strong he might be able to snatch it out of the empty space in front of him and burn it against the skin of his chest.

Jeno took a breath, held it, and let it go, then crossed back into the changing room section.

Jaemin tucked himself into hugs like the person holding him was the world instead of himself. Renjun sat with one leg tucked up onto the bench and Jaemin held so close he almost managed to settle the shudders of Jaemin’s silent crying, his own eyes wet.

Releasing one more breath, Jeno went over to them and touched through Jaemin’s soft locks before settling down behind him, straddling the bench and doing his best to wrap two worlds up with his very human arms.

Jaemin’s back was warm, thin, shuddering, and Renjun caved in the firm line of his spine to become a messier part of just…them, more than the situations they were in.

“What’ll happen if you go home, Jaemin?” Jeno murmured into the worn shirt over Jaemin’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he said, voice little more than water and sound. Jeno strained to hold them closer as if it could fix anything. 

All he could think of was the ice cream—living until the next moment, and then the next, forward until things were passing like a skipped rock only briefly connecting with the surface of a lake. Living for the moments where he could taste joy in his mouth instead of against the ones that made him want to smother himself in the thread-count of his mother’s bed and die that way. Living until he’d survived a more intimidating amount of hurt than the injuries that faced him.

But what was there to do when things kept getting worse? Not for him, but Jaemin, and therefore him as well.

“We’ll be here for you,” was the only conclusion he can think to say, pressing his lips to the sunburned edges of the scar on Jaemin’s nape. “We’re here for you.”

“Please,” Jaemin whispered, dragging in a breath against Renjun’s neck and tight grip, and that was it. In that moment, there was nothing more to say. Wouldn’t be until they disentangled and willfully moved onward, and Renjun checked the situation outside, and Yukhei called to report that Jaemin’s mother’s car had left, and Jeno’s heart felt heavier and stronger. All at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe I can reasonably promise that the next chapter will be lighter ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	28. Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: discussions of abuse and death
> 
> but I will say that this chapter is brighter than most—not brighter than, say, the chapters with Renjun's mom in them, but brighter.
> 
> Q: why are you posting so mf late, anne?  
A: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  
Q: is this edited?  
A: NOT REALLY NO PLEASE FORGIVE ME I'll read over in the morning for typos but for now I hope it's you know *gestures* readable.
> 
> I love you guys =[ ♡ thank you so much for your comments and patience.

The lids peeling back from each pint of ice cream was quiet, the crinkling plastic for those with slow hands flipping off the ridges in stiff, flimsy arcs.

“What’d you get?” Jisung murmured, pressing up against Jeno’s elbow where he sat against the changing room wall. They’d elected to stay inside for a while longer, terrified that Jaemin’s mother would return to the parking lot and see them out in the sun from beyond the fence.

Jeno turned the pint carton around so Jisung could see—the label stating that it was “Minter Wonderland” no longer visible to Renjun, who sat across from them with one knee tipped over on top of Donghyuck’s. Jaemin was tucked into Yukhei’s side with Mark on his other, snug in the corner. On Donghyuck’s left was Yukhei, on Renjun’s right was Chenle, and it was like stargazing plus the kids and minus Yuqi. Everyone had a spoon borrowed from Mark’s house, apparently a pitstop they’d made before hitting the grocery store, and the lighting was dim and everyone was a little subdued, but it was safe. Somehow, in less than two weeks, Renjun felt like this group was tight and strong and safe.

And maybe it was all the displays of protectiveness he’d seen. The total lack of hesitation between any of them to be absolutely unquestionably stupid for each other. Wasn’t that good friendship? Wasn’t that what he had with Donghyuck?

The whole day had shaken to shreds and then converged, then fallen apart, and was once again patched together, and Renjun felt distinctly _weird. _Like life was akimbo and he was just forced to be tossed about. He could barely get his hands around the edges of the barrel as he swamped down this rapid-ass river.

He just. Wanted this to be real. It felt like everything was paused in this space. Like nothing else existed beyond chlorine-sweaty tiles and eight people in a wonky circle. But it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. Renjun wished things would stop going, but that wasn’t his privilege.

“Can I try some?” Jisung asked, hand on Jeno’s elbow, and Jeno’s lips pressed into amusement, having not even dug his spoon in yet.

“I’ll be honest,” said Renjun, watching them and the way Jeno offered it up anyway, but also breaking into the “Pucker Upper” sherbet Yukhei had apparently chosen for him on a very respectable guess. “This is probably the first meal I’m actually going to eat today.”

Yukhei laughed, sudden and bright with his eyes crinkled and his body leaning forward as if this misfortune was delightful. Jaemin looked scrunched by Yukhei’s movement, but for that moment, his lips twitched. “Oh my god,” said Yukhei, “I overeat when I’m stressed! We’re opposites!”

It bubbled up before he could even consider holding it—Renjun laughed, then stuck a spoon in his mouth before he sat there with nothing to say. Suddenly, they were all sharing their oddities: Donghyuck bit his nails, Jaemin picked at his lips, Jeno got fidgety (an offering made by Chenle when Jeno looked like someone had asked him what his fifth cousin did for fun on the sixteenth day of each month—that is to say, he looked like he never knew what he was doing ever at all), and Mark pulled at his hair.

Jisung said, “I think I just cry.” and Jeno nearly snorted up his mint ice cream.

“I just, like, feel like I’m going to vomit,” Renjun clarified, “so I don’t eat.”

“Right,” Chenle said. “That makes sense.” Then: “I don’t get nervous.”

Which Jeno protested immediately. Memories were brought out like receipts, Chenle got louder, Jeno got louder, which was somehow, undoubtedly, a delight to witness, and then Chenle was laughing and tugging at Jeno’s shirt as Jisung stole from Jeno’s pint and made a face at Donghyuck. Donghyuck coughed, then tucked into his knees and laughed, too.

It was so messy. It was all messy and brighter than the artificial changing room lights, and Jaemin was burying a smile into the side of Yukhei’s chest. 

Donghyuck took Renjun’s pint out of his hand and replaced it with his own. “Peanut Butter Half-Baked” was a real palate shock after all his sour. Renjun wondered why Donghyuck couldn’t have stayed in California. Why it couldn’t be like this indefinitely. He would have liked to keep Donghyuck as a fixture in this life—in this circle—but even Mark and Yukhei were transient. Was it anyone’s fault that a butterfly lost its wings if it was just…time? Time weaving webs, stealing best friends, forcing adjustments that felt unjust.

“You guys have your, like, Super Saturday Showcase thing tomorrow right?” Mark asked, and it shook Renjun back into the moment as his voice pinged against the tile and metal and lights. “Not to just. Drag Jaemin into this again but it’s the parents thing tomorrow, right?”

Jaemin didn’t shrink, really. He just turned his eyes on Mark and spun the tip of his spoon in a divot of softened coffee ice cream. It said “Brewed to Matter” on the side, which felt like a nice touch—intentional or not.

They were all some measure of resigned, maybe.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck said, of all people, because apparently speech was overrated for everyone but him (Renjun thought he might be crashing; when they got home, he would tuck his arms around Donghyuck and cease to be). “Yeah, they do.”

“It’s just. I don’t,” said Mark, pushing words through a sigh, and he ran his fingers through his hair like a claw instead of a comb. “I don’t think—” He aborted himself, gave up for a moment, and as Jeno sat with his ice cream melting and Jaemin seemed to barely exist, Renjun wondered if any of them were okay. “I would like if Jaemin’s parents didn’t…have the privilege of seeing him for the first time in private.”

“Oh,” Yukhei said, and Jaemin let out a breath that sounded harder than his lungs deserved. “They’d probably show up, huh?” Yukhei had been leveraging his ice cream with his knees and one hand, so he still had one free to smooth down Jaemin’s neck quietly, fretfully, subconsciously.

“Yes,” said Jaemin.

Renjun was terrified, in a part of himself he was only now meeting, to admit that he had never imagined this situation existing before Jaemin. It hadn’t properly crossed his mind in full images. He’d known child abuse existed—and they were children, really, still children—but it hadn’t taken shape.

He was used to anger, and was learning how to identify helplessness, and the intersection of the two felt like a burnt loaf of bread crumbling apart in his chest. His mouth tasted like death.

“She’ll recognize us, won’t she?” Renjun said the moment it occurred to him, and suddenly he felt like an immunity he didn’t realize he’d had was ripped away from him.

_Oh,_ he thought as Jaemin gazed at him in confirmation. _I am complicit._

Jaemin had said he didn’t know what it would be like for him to go home after this, and Renjun thought of all the lies and all the ways they’d made his life suddenly harder. How hard would Jaemin’s dad hit him for his mother’s humiliation? How hard would Jaemin hurt for looking at the stars or eating ice cream in a small changing room corner?

But then again, he’d heard Jaemin laugh so many times, and his smile lit up like sunlight on water, and he’d seen that—he’d _done_ that. And what was the point of hell and high-water without the sunshine?

* * *

This time, when the alarm shook Renjun awake, he turned it off within the first blaring shriek. He stared at the ceiling. He breathed out.

“Your band's fucking crazy for doing this to you.”

Renjun inhaled, coughed, then laughed, rolling out of bed and carefully avoiding hitting Donghyuck with his feet. Donghyuck, the glorified lump that looked very much done with this whole waking-up-at-gross-o’clock thing.

“Seriously,” said Donghyuck from the mattress on the floor, “fuck band? High school is _already _early.”

“And now it’s Saturday,” Renjun said, grinning. For the record, he felt like ass, but it was easier not to pay attention to that when he had his best friend accurately vocalizing his own discontentment.

“And now it’s a Saturday,” repeated Donghyuck, Renjun thought, since it was hard to hear him once he turned his face into the pillow and spoke his disgust into the sheets.

With Donghyuck on the floor, there was only so much space in Renjun’s room to navigate—the entire house was rather small if he compared it to other houses he was aware of. He stepped over Donghyuck’s prone form to get to the dresser.

“I think mom would agree to take you with her for the actual performance if you wanted to skip,” Renjun reminded him one more time and was rewarded by Donghyuck turning his head just enough to give him a single, judgmental eyeful of I’m-tired-of-your-bullshit. Early-morning Donghyuck was an undoubtable pleasure.

“If you were visiting me,” Donghyuck groused, “you would suffer just as I have because you love me.”

“That’s true,” Renjun conceded to his socks. “I already miss more than I want to of your life.”

“What if Sarwen breaks your mallets?” Donghyuck asked the air and flapped his hand. It was a fear Renjun had voiced now reflected right back at him for convenience.

“Exactly.”

“And I want to ask Jeno if he, like, slept at all,” Donghyuck continued, and Renjun couldn’t help but cough out another laugh. His lungs and throat didn’t work properly in the mornings, and so it was all he could do in the face of a bittersweet mix of endearment and worry.

Yukhei had admitted to being nervous about taking Jaemin for the second day in a row, and in a disastrously painful display of excitement, Chenle had elbowed Jeno so hard in the side that he’d gone white in the face and doubled over.

So Jaemin was out there having slept in one of Jeno’s guest rooms, and perhaps Jeno hadn’t slept at all because of it. Renjun knew he’d be fidgety himself with either one of them sleeping over. It was a lot of anxieties and considerations to juggle, and he wondered if _Jaemin_ had been able to sleep because of that. There was something Renjun was starting to pick up on with Jaemin, and that was how he looked like a small form of death whenever he supposed he was impinging.

In any case, Donghyuck’s motives were nefarious but relatable.

“You seem alright,” Donghyuck observed, still on the floor, still eating pillow.

Renjun shrugged as he peeled off his sleeping shirt. “I don’t feel great.” He didn’t. He was tired and stressed and if he dug a little deeper he was still angry at too many things, but—“You only have today and tomorrow left, though, you know?”

Donghyuck was quiet. In his position, Renjun would be too.

They’d talked about it. They talked about everything. Donghyuck was angry he’d been forced to let go of his life for parents he might move away from in two years. He loved them, though, and staying behind would have been worse, he’d judged, as if they’d given him an option. 

They’d also finally talked about Mark just the night before.

_“Do you like him?”_

_“I think I want—I mean, yes, kind of. I’m—hah. I think I’m interested in who he is, but I think I want one more connection to you, and it’s silly because he’s not the best for that, so yeah. Maybe I like him enough to make excuses.”_

_“I’m not going anywhere.”_

_“I know.”_

_“I’m really not. There’s only one Donghyuck Lee.”_

_“…I know.”_

Friends like Donghyuck weren’t replaceable—especially when he left such stupid-shaped holes where Renjun hadn’t realized he’d miss him. How was he supposed to function day-to-day without someone calling him out on his shit? It wasn’t something his family could do because it felt different from them. It was insulting or anxiety-inducing or made him feel inadequate despite their care and love. Not more grounded. Not more centered. Adjusting to a life without Donghyuck was a day-to-day shit hole.

_“I’m worried I’m going to be a disaster as soon as you leave,” he’d said when the silence had made room.“That they won’t like me anymore.”_

_“They liked you before I arrived.”_

_“But I’m so much worse.”_

_“Maybe you’ll be better with them.”_

But he still didn’t know how to talk to them. He just knew how to hold hands and feel butterflies and get away with being selfish. He wanted to talk to them so badly it almost hurt. Maybe that was good enough.

“Do you think,” said Donghyuck, and Renjun paused in the middle of pulling on his shorts for the tone of voice he’d adopted, “that it’s a bad idea for us to go to the same college?”

“All of us?” asked Renjun. “Or just you and me?” College applications were the frightening little text on a car’s sideview mirror: objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

“Either?”

Renjun considered the tufty bed hair of brown waves Donghyuck had for a head and the hand he had wrapped in old sheets. “I don’t think we should sacrifice our futures over each other, but if all of us have a university in common…”

He knew the logistics. He knew the concerns about independence and flourishing outside of high school circles. He knew friendships still fell apart, and universities were the future and every one had a different personality, and maybe Jaemin would fit best at Davis and Jeno at Cal Poly while Renjun fit best at Berkeley—if they actually got into those schools. Renjun didn’t know. But he did know that his life was better with certain people in it and he still had a long-ass time to decide if Jaemin and Jeno were included before he had to nail down his future.

“We’ll see,” Renjun said finally as Donghyuck turned to lie on his back. “I like when you’re with me better than I do when you aren’t, and that’s kinda big.”

Donghyuck had an array of smiles—his face was fascinatingly controlled, and the variety he encompassed was both entertaining and terrifying—but this one was the biggest small one. The one where it wasn’t quite sure, but it was very warm, and his eyes meant something more than the tiny quirk of his lips.

“I’m just saying,” Renjun said, because that kind of smile made him feel a tad defensive.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck said, and Renjun managed a laugh that was more than just a cough.

* * *

Getting to band early was an instinct of self-preservation, but it served Renjun kindly as of late because apparently Jeno was a chronic offender of arriving first—mocking God and all his peers for their exhaustion when he, supposedly, had forty more minutes of sanity to spare in the mornings than the rest of them.

Jaemin was there too, naturally, and Renjun had about one minute to process a smile before Jeno was sliding in between the gate and his body and saying, “Can I talk to you?”

Suddenly everything felt wildly strange.

His eyes were green from contacts and he was wearing a purply sort of eye shadow, but that wasn’t it. It was the word choices and the way Donghyuck slinked away from him to where Jaemin was sitting against the drama room wall with his phone in his hands.

“Yeah,” Renjun said because what on earth was he going to say otherwise?

Jeno edged back out into the faculty parking lot where Renjun could just see the back of his mom’s car driving past the wheel-out partition. Renjun stepped away with him, trying to get a grasp on Jeno’s body language and mood and absently processing his basketball shorts and sleeveless tank top.

“So Jaemin slept at mine last night,” Jeno began, and Renjun really didn’t know what was going on because yeah, of course. He remembered.

“Is he okay?”

Jeno blinked pretty green eyes at him and smiled, kind of. “Yeah, I mean. Enough. He’s okay enough.”

“Oh.”

“I just,” said Jeno, and Renjun was becoming conscious of how the sunrise lit the sky up in peach swathes and blue, and the way it was windy and Jeno’s hair was less styled today, so it moved with the breeze. “I had to tell him something about me that you don’t know yet, and I don’t want it to like…I don’t want to not tell you, so I’m telling you now.”

“Okay,” Renjun said, but really didn’t know why. He couldn’t fathom what he was consenting to.

Jeno smiled at him for real this time, but it was fleeting, and then he saw pain and Renjun froze up before he could process it properly.

“My mom died last year. She drowned, and I found her, and Jaemin knows because I only have my dad and it’s—it’s uh, kind of obvious once you’re inside my house.”

Renjun stared at the motions Jeno’s face went through. Pain, and then nothing, and then something like a smile again. Apologetic this time, when—

“I’m sorry,” Renjun said. “Jeno, I’m sorry.”

And Jeno blinked, and blinked again, and inhaled something just the slightest bit torn, and then nodded.

Renjun ran the words through his head. Jeno’s mother had died last year. She had drowned. Jeno had found her. She’d drowned, died, and Jeno had _found_ her.

He couldn’t fathom his own mom dying, let alone seeing her dead.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, this time with a little more thought about what he was saying, and when Jeno blinked, his breath was aborted, and it was so much worse. It was so, so much worse.

He didn’t wonder why he hadn’t been told—it had been two weeks. He suddenly felt the accident at the pool like a punch to the windpipe. He felt Sarwendah’s words like an explosion in his ears and he could hear nothing at all except a fine, horrified ringing.

Jeno swallowed, or tried to, and nodded again and opened his mouth to say something as a little splash of water hit the pavement between them.

“Can I hug you?” Renjun asked, because Jeno had opened his mouth, but nothing had come out, and Jeno didn’t look like he’d wanted to tell anyone at all. He didn’t look like he’d wanted to tell Renjun, and he imagined he didn’t want to tell Jaemin, and who would ever want to tell anyone ever that their mom had passed?

Who would want to face a reality like that if it existed?

Jeno sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and a crease formed between his brows above eyes trying very hard to blink back more tears. And Renjun didn’t _love_ Jeno, but he did in so many other ways. When Jeno lifted his arms from his sides and opened his palms, swallowing like his throat didn’t work quite right and his lungs didn’t either, Renjun hugged him tight around his ribcage and waist. He found his heart beating through thin fabric and a shuddered breath in his ear.

Jeno let his head fall, let Renjun’s neck and shoulder cradle his face, and hugged him back.

“I’m sorry you had to tell us,” Renjun said, and found it harder to speak than he realized.

“It’s okay,” Jeno mumbled.

In that hug, in the midst of it where Jeno felt firm and falling at the same time—and warm and shivering at the same time, too—Renjun wondered why it was that life was so weird and painful, but let him hug the most wonderful boys.

Why was it so messed up and seemingly so mean, but allowed him to have this? Have a friend who did the most to make sure he didn’t fall apart, and a family that respected him and made him laugh, and Linnie and Chenle, and then Jeno and Jaemin too?

He hoped he was worth it to them. He hoped he was on the other side of the coin for them—the one that faced the sky instead of the ground.

He squeezed Jeno, and Jeno squeezed him back, and he wanted the world to be less cruel, but knew it wouldn’t be. So he asked for more joy, instead. He kissed Jeno’s ear, and Jeno only held him tighter, and that was a little something, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. With this chapter, I think we're near the end. I don't know precisely how many more chapters I have left to give—they're not many, but they're not few—but I do know that for the first time, I feel the end of BAS nearing. I can promise at least three more. Likely double that if I'm being real with myself because it always takes longer than I think it will. I thought we'd get Jeno's chapters way earlier than we did, and that clearly didn't happen. But the end is in sight.
> 
> For any quick questions I can assume you'll ask:
> 
> Will BAS get a sequel?  
I have one planned, but it might be a while. So I'm going to say confidently that yes, it will get a sequel, but I don't know when.
> 
> Will the sequel be about norenmin?  
Not the official sequel—not directly. I imagine I will write smaller things for this universe for norenmin. I already technically have one written.
> 
> You tagged this fic "no sad endings"...What Does That Mean?  
It means that I'm not going to break your hearts because my heart can't survive that either, but the ending will not be saccharine. The boys deserve something more real than that, and real life is not, in fact, saccharine.  

> 
> I hope you all are doing very well. Hang in there! Stay safe, healthy, kind, and informed.  
[twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)  
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)  



	29. Jaemin, Jeno, Renjun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is woefully unedited, but I'll go over it when I wake up and make sure it's up to par. Please forgive any mistakes you see!  
(Update July 17: Edited now! I feel like this chapter was particularly bad *grimaces* My apologies. Let me know if there's anything I didn't catch!)
> 
> Trigger warnings are light for this chapter. Jaemin reflects on his abuse. Jeno thinks about his mother.

As the entire band was corralled onto the basketball courts for their 20 minutes of stretching, Jaemin rolled a singular thought around in his mind, so definite he could almost hold it in his hands. Their marching tech sat in the middle of the two circles like a bullseye with their bendy limbs and overenthusiastic pressure, and Jaemin sat between Risi and Wes. Across the way were Jeno and Renjun, settled in the outer circle. Donghyuck was sitting against the courts’ fence in the shade of one of the hoop backboards.

He felt one entire reality removed away from all the things that pointed back to him being an issue, and that was what he liked about band. He was a moving piece of the marching-concert dynamic and nothing more. He would rather cease to exist than give Jeno, Renjun, Mark—anyone—up, but had to admit that there was peace in being just a worker bee in an overblown setting.

Even so, there was really only one thing he could attribute to how he could viscerally feel himself start to relax, and it was that one singular thought. That one assurance. And it was this:

He was utterly confident that his parents wouldn’t call the police.

It didn’t matter if he was gone from their household for two days or twenty because they would not, under any circumstances, risk legality to bind him.

Back when he was eleven, he’d done something—he couldn’t recall for the life of him what it could have possibly been, but he'd been in the kitchen and he’d done something unfavorable. His mother had been angry, as she often was, and…well. Since then, he’s only been seriously injured twice by his parents. The second being his neck at dinner, the first being his first year of high school when he sprained his ankle. Currently, he was considering his neck injury as the most traumatic if only because it was leading to perhaps one of his worst bouts of defiance and repercussions ever, but all three were scary in their own right. He just couldn’t remember this one well. It was full of holes, and Mark had since told him that memory issues were just a _thing_ with trauma.

It was weird for him to recognize that there were self-inflicted gaps in his memory, but he didn’t exactly like remembering the shit he remembered right _now,_ so perhaps it was for the greater good.

At eleven, though, she’d bruised his lower back and side badly enough that he’d shown some sort of pain or discomfort under his homeroom teacher’s watchful eye. She had asked about it, and he hadn’t had the experience to know not to be honest when confronted, and the world had seemed to flip upside-down.

He just remembered the feeling, at this point, and the objective details. Child services had stepped in, and then they had stepped out. Jaemin couldn’t remember if he’d lied to them or not—out of fear, out of understanding, or out from under the thumb of a threat he’d probably been old enough to acknowledge as serious.

He’d been pulled out of school for about two weeks and his parents had taken him to visit the redwoods in northern California. The trees had been beautiful, massive, bigger than he could ever be, and his mother had been deeply irritated that he’d wanted to spend the trip in silence. When he’d asked for something from the gift shop, he hadn’t received anything except for a lecture on money. At the age of eleven, he knew the lecture by heart, but it still gave him anxiety he couldn’t shake.

The trip had been formed with some purpose—perhaps to bond with him. Perhaps to help his teacher forget and to remove him from the probing grip of child services before he told them something he shouldn’t have (or should). Perhaps to remind his parents that they did countless things for him, including bringing him along for beautiful holidays. It had been weird, but he hadn’t questioned it.

When he’d returned, everything had been swept under the rug, but there was still his record. In his sixth grade file, there was a report of concern over a potentially abusive home situation. His parents were aware of it, Jaemin was aware of it, and while he would rather continue to persevere, if his parents called the police—which they wouldn’t—he would not lie again.

He was terrified of returning home and perhaps even more afraid of his parents successfully extracting him from his safe spaces by force, but there was a sheen of safety of which he was distinctly aware. His mother was socially-conscious and would avoid humiliating herself to a certain extent. His dad only cared about him if he was in the same room.

As long as he was in band with his members, the techs, Ms. M—too many adults, too many witnesses, too much power in numbers—his parents were not a threat to him.

So he stretched in peace, his phone far, far away from him and his parents many hours away from being relevant.

They would come to the showcase. If they didn’t, he would be rendered physically inept out of paralyzing relief, but if his mother was willing to search the swimming pool for him on Friday, she was going to take advantage of a social obligation he was too involved in to escape.

He'd been having one other thought, too, and when it had first occurred to him, he'd known he should have been mortified.

He hadn’t been.

Jeno had told him of the death of his mother, and for the first time in his life, Jaemin’s first response hadn’t been empathy. 

It had been envy.

Not just envy that Jeno had a mother he missed and who loved him, but specifically a mother who was dead.

Ultimately, empathy was more important, and it was the one that prevailed almost instantly—whatever murky, selfish bullshit was brewing in Jaemin’s chest wasn’t welcome around the people he loved—but the thought had formed and now it existed.

Jaemin wasn’t sure if he loved his mother more than he resented her, anymore.

As he curled over his legs on the morning-cool blacktop, feeling the slight ache in his muscles, he had to recognize that he had better things than one-sided love. He _knew,_ now, more reciprocal love than his parents had given him since he was a child. He’d met that love and held it. Some of it was maybe raw and immature and confused, but it was better than what he thought he’d had (and had less of than he’d realized).

Romantic or not, Jeno and Renjun _liked _him. Mark loved him so much it hurt. Yukhei loved him so much Jaemin could feel his hugs through his soul. Yuqi loved him despite him being a mere packaged deal with her boyfriend. She cared about him.

And maybe his mother had lied when she said she didn’t love him, but he had better words than that. He had better people than that.

Two days away from his parents and the pressure and anxiety was building, but he felt more human, somehow.

So he stretched and let himself live. Let himself roll his saxophone fingerings and memorized music through his mind, prioritized the appeal of moving his body through the orchestrated spaces they’d formafter the stretching was over, and the social nature of trusting his peers with some arbitrary something everyone collectively decided mattered. Risi joked about how Shanon from the flute section might “flip herself over she’s so flexible” and Jaemin let himself laugh into his knees.

His parents couldn’t hurt him. This was _his_ space.

* * *

Jeno arranged his equipment at the front sideline as the band settled into formation for the drum break. As he straightened with his guard rifle, he hardly realized someone had touched his arm before Tuyet was next to him, chin up and eyes leveled with Sarwendah’s—whose hand was quickly crabbing to her chest in surprise.

“Good morning, Sarwen,” Tuyet said as Jeno peeked over Tuyet’s sunscreen-ed shoulder at Sarwendah’s offended shock. Tuyet had a few inches on him, and he felt like he’d been separated by a steel wall. “Don’t touch him, please.”

He didn’t mind the protective impulse—last time he’d been emotionally compromised, Sarwendah had pulled some very public bullshit. He was fragile again, though building himself back up slowly, and he wasn’t sure he needed Sarwendah doing something deeply unnecessary in his presence again. He’d thought he kind of severed things on the tennis court, but maybe not. It wasn’t like he’d said anything particularly final.

“I have something for him,” Sarwendah said with the same tone as calling Tuyet a bitch.

Jeno sidestepped Tuyet, and Tuyet let him, closing her mouth around ready words of rejection, he imagined. “Is it an apology?” Jeno asked, and perhaps he should have curbed the curve of humor in his tone—that was confidence that would probably just make Sarwendah meaner.

_“No,”_ she snipped and thrust her other hand out with three slips of slim paper pinched in her grip. He recognized his own handwriting, and from there could deduce Jaemin’s, and he didn’t feel surprise or embarrassment, but he did feel a shape of anger.

For a moment, he imagined a worst case scenario: he would reach for them, she would pull them back, and he would punch her in the face.

He didn’t move, just in case, and stared at her instead for some kind of explanation. Tuyet glanced between the two of them, but they weren’t running out of time. There were still band members sucking on their water bottles and applying sunscreen, a dispersal after the marching practice blocks that would be re-congregated in “less than five minutes” according to the same director talking up a storm with the marching instructor.

So Jeno let himself take his time making Sarwendah uncomfortable.

“Just take them,” she insisted.

He wondered if Renjun’s eyes were on him out in the open like this, with Sarwendah offering an olive branch she stole off someone else’s tree.

“Why do you have them?” he asked and drifted out a hand to nudge at Tuyet’s hip—to signal to her that he was okay. And he was. She drifted off to her dot in the formation and it was just the two of them on the sideline with Sarwendah’s foot two inches away from stepping on his flag.

“I found them,” she defended, tight in her delivery, agitated. 

“Interesting,” he said.

“Take them,” she tried again.

“They’re not for me,” he said, and under her smooth olive skin, she turned the color of ashy snow. He hitched his rifle, muzzle off the ground and the length in both hands, drummed his fingers against the wide, fake barrel, and left her on the sidelines with three slips of paper in her hand.

He’d seen the one on top clearly and remembered writing it.

_It’s okay to fail,_ he’d written. _That’s how we get to be the best. You win either way._

That was something his mother had taught him, and so he felt anger. Anger that Sarwendah had a message precious to him and meant for Renjun in her tennis-callused hands. In a sense, she was the only reason Renjun had to experience half the amount of stress he’d felt and the majority of the resulting frustration and disappointment. That message wasn’t for her. At all.

But she had to be the one to give them back, he figured.

He walked out to the curve the trombones had set, fiddling with their slides and dot books and neon fanny packs. When Tuyet snagged his gaze from a yard line away, he spared her a smile for comfort, and when the entire band settled and was called to set, Jeno felt centered.

Kyla counted them off and the percussion woke up, the choreography slid through him, the weight of the rifle familiar and with beautiful tossing momentum. The marching formations twisted and slotted into each other and swirled around the drumline flexing their chops and synchrony.

He passed Jaemin at one point just as they exited the drum break, legs long as he maintained a half jazz-run to meet his dot. Jeno had this moment burned into his retinas so that the second where his rifle slapped his palms never took him by surprise.

The music swelled as the winds shook themselves alive and broke into the fifth part of the show, the climax before the finale. The flags came out with the sabers, and Jeno felt himself get lost in the intervals between band members, the snappy roll of the battery, Kyla’s hands weaving emblem after emblem through the air. His saber tilted and swung delicately through his touch, and he watched it cut the sky in arcs, the untaped parts flashing silver, the white tape wheeling a circle—the same tape that Renjun wrapped around his fingers—before catching it.

His smile came naturally even with the segue into his next steps, his next twirl, his next set of short tosses, and the dive for his flag with its splash of cerulean breaking up the green football turf. There was no applause, but there would be when the sun fell and the stadium lights buzzed to brightness and his dad would be there with his phone on, capturing every second.

This was his third parent showcase, all three of which his dad had attended.

His mother had only seen one.

But that’s just how things were. He’d just have to remember the way she had crushed him in her proud hug, the kiss she’d buried into his hair, the question she’d asked that had been something like, _“How do I have such a beautiful son?”_

He’d just have to remember that.

And his dad would be there tonight, who could be just enough, whose hugs were always a little softer, a little more emotional. He’d remember her, and he’d bask in him.

* * *

Renjun’s heart rate always ticked up a little from playing their show—even just half of it. His body felt like a singular, hollow chime of aluminum, resonating with the entirety of everything coming together.

They still weren’t perfect. Even the pit tech was tweaking their music. They’d continue to make changes to their show up until championships (should they get in), making it more complex and more difficult and infinitely more rewarding.

He turned to sidle out of the pit as Ms. M gave them their brief break, but Sarwendah stepped in the way and suddenly Renjun’s hollow chime filled with concrete.

“What?” he bit out on instinct, and her lip curled like a flower petal burning in the sun.

“No need to be a bitch, Huang,” she said. “I just have something of yours.”

Dread. Oh, dread. It was all-encompassing. He didn’t even see what she had taken—he didn’t want to know if she’d gotten into the bag he’d left in the band room. He had sheet music he’d written himself in his binder. He thought he might have one of Donghyuck’s letters there. Jeno’s tape was in that bag.

Alternatively, maybe she would hand him a note telling him to go to hell and exactly how she planned to sabotage him in front of the tech. He hadn’t thought that far ahead—how he would defend himself if she told the tech all the ways he was unkind to her and difficult to work with. Asocial, proud, competitive, frustrating, unfriendly.

“What did you—”

She drew something out of the back pocket of her shorts and held out these little slips of paper for him. He felt his scaffolding of anxiety crash with confusion. What the fuck were those?

“What—”

“They’re your stupid notes,” she explained, almost pushing them into his chest if it weren’t that she was averse to touching him. He fumbled to catch them and keep them from fluttering away when she let go, and it clicked into place for him. Twenty notes and he hadn’t gotten all of them. Of all people, she had three. She had probably _read_ them.

“They’re not stupid,” he said as if his words ever helped her give a fuck.

Her hair spilled over her shoulder as she flicked it forward. “Must be nice to get some support,” she said, but it was unkind. As if it was a privilege he was supposed to share, and because he couldn’t, he was disgustingly selfish, or something.

He didn’t know what she wanted him to do and really didn’t appreciate feeling partially at her mercy. This was the first time he’d even properly processed her presence since Donghyuck had ripped her a new one, and he didn’t like her any more than before. He couldn’t think of anything that she had done to him, near him, or to others that warranted her being remotely likable.

_Must be nice to pretend not having any support isn’t your fault, _is what he wanted to say, but instead, he tried to breathe and think, because he’d at least suggested that he would partner with her if that’s what the director chose. He said, “It is.” which wasn’t much better, and by her expression, she didn’t seem to like it either, but at the very least, he had not snapped back at her. He didn’t stoop lower than she had.

“Fuck off,” she said.

“I’m not going to fight with you,” he replied, which could turn out to be false, but for the moment, he was committed to trying. “You heard the—”

“Yeah, I heard them,” she said and her nose flared like a proud bull challenged with too much red. “I’m not interested.”

_That’s not how this works,_ he wanted to say, but again he bit his tongue and instead watched her pivot to leave like she had done some kind of mic drop and…for once he felt kind of like she’d lacked impact.

It occurred to him that she didn’t have any power. That bitterness, maybe, was a weakness, and that her words and actions didn’t make her better, more liked, more trusted, stronger. She was just Sarwen on an island, throwing rocks and shouting at the sea for being salty.

He stood at his vibraphone for a good three seconds with a grimace taking over his face when Donghyuck was delicately plunking his elbows on the aluminum bars of his instrument. “Don’t do that,” Renjun told him, and Donghyuck pouted apologetically, lifting himself off again.

“Do I have to bully her back?” he asked. The rest of the pit had dispersed a little—a handful of them having probably heard the outset of Sarwendah thrusting upon him stolen goods, but her tone was nothing new, and him being her target was old news, too. _Why_ did the tech not know this?

“No,” he murmured and spread the notes out on the keys. He still didn’t know which handwriting was whose, but he associated the small scrawling differences with a sweet, complicated sort of ache in his chest.

The first one made him want to laugh. The second was one he’d have to think about properly later. The third almost hurt.

_Even if they don’t pick you, you’re my first choice!_

_It’s okay to fail. That’s how we get to be the best. You win either way._

_Everything will be alright in the end._

The day had started off with a blow, he wasn’t ignoring the persistent worry that Jaemin’s parents might show up at the showcase, and he really didn’t know how he was supposed to make Sarwendah work with him. The stress hadn’t abated all that much from the previous day’s assessment—life just came forward with new pressures like if the difficulties let up, the world would go up in flames.

But he could kind of admit that he was happier than he’d been in a long time, too, somehow. He didn't know how this bullshit alchemy worked, but something about having Jeno and Jaemin and everything that came with them, Donghyuck’s presence, his family, Linnie, everyone made him feel like he had more than he’d ever realized. He would choose this reality again and again even though Sarwendah existed and assessments had been the ultimate sucker punch and everyone—literally everyone—was struggling. 

“Life sucks,” he said out loud, and Donghyuck snorted so hard it dislodged the third slip of paper. Renjun caught it before it slipped through the cracks. “But I feel kind of okay with it.”

“Kinda?” asked Donghyuck. The pit was returning slowly to their instruments once again, the tech informing them that they’d be called to attention soon. The sun gleamed off the polished brass bars of Renjun's vibraphone, sinking into the pores of his arms, threatening the impending reality of nearly-singed arm hairs and a tan dark enough to inspire awe no matter how much sunscreen he used.

“I feel okay with it,” Renjun said. He felt more than okay with it, really. He wanted this. He was feeling up to the challenge. 

Donghyuck’s mouth did a tiny sort of thing almost like a smile. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you feel the climax nearing? Personally, I'm wondering if I'll manage to finish this before this fic's 1-year anniversary.
> 
> This is the first chapter we get all three boys and it was very, very necessary, I think.
> 
> Thoughts? Feelings? Everyone okay? Everyone staying healthy? ♡ 
> 
> I [made a thread on twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana/status/1282403621242458112?s=20)  
explaining a little bit about what Jeno does as color guard if anyone would find it helpful!
> 
>   
[twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)  
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)  



	30. Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a poll on twitter for what people preferred for this chapter and the winning vote was to have a long chapter over three separated updates.  
Please be warned that this chapter alone is 9k. There are three sections and two section breaks, so please feel free to take your time! You can treat this chapter as three, if you would like =]
> 
> This is also super different than what I usually do, and that's going to be very obvious within the first word. I hope you guys enjoy this ♡ I did.
> 
> No big trigger warnings!
> 
> Lastly: thank you for your patience on this update. A bunch of life being...life threw me for a loop and I wasn't able to stick to the 3-week schedule I've been keeping consistent. I wrote a summary for anyone who's reasonably forgotten what's happened. Also, with comments! Thank you, as always, for everyone who leaves one. I see them, I love them. I have answered so many over the past month but I still haven't caught up. I swear I'm trying ;;

Linnie was the youngest in her family. Because of this, being a fourth year wasn’t her biggest strength and neither was being a leader. She was expected to be a leader in the band to a mild extent, however, the strongest onus being on her musical ability. As the sole keyboardist, she’d better damn well never screw up, and she didn’t.

The entire pit, really, didn’t allow much of a margin of error for anyone—the bar was higher for them, and they often exceeded it.

In any case, while not a natural leader, having people younger looking up to her (literally or otherwise) was still exciting, in certain ways, and the year it was Jordan, Naveed, Tamyra, Thane, and her role to design and arrange the “freshman kidnapping” was a very fun thing for Linnie.

Every year, right before band camp, the first years were stolen from their homes at a near unpardonable hour (by their guardians’ consent), taken to breakfast where the rest of the section would meet them, then shoehorned into cars that would take them to the lake. It was a welcoming party, of sorts, and an opportunity to all see each other in their groggiest, worst-kept forms, which was all band was, really. A gaggle of teenagers sweating and barely keeping it together like badly-made flan.

That unity of suffering was what joined them all at the hip, and as far as Linnie could tell, high school was hell whether band was a factor or not.

She remembered how the kidnapping went for Renjun and Sarwendah both. At the time, there had been one other first year, Charlotte, who had dropped out before concert season of last year to join the International Baccalaureate program. She was now a mystery, since IB tended to swallow its students whole and reveal them only when they started to develop a vitamin D deficiency.

In any case, Renjun had been the bewildered kind of captive—he’d seemed tiny at the time, shoulders narrow, teeth snared by braces (Linnie had those now, while he’d been freed from them), and a muddy sort of raw energy cavorting in his eyes.

Sarwendah had been electric and aggressive, immediately demanding to know where they intended to take her and promptly—amazingly—arguing with them. Or so Linnie had been told. She’d been in the car with Thane and Tamyra to pick up Renjun. Jordan and Naveed had gathered Sarwendah and Charlotte.

Renjun’s class for band had been small pickings, so the pit didn’t really complain about Sarwendah’s demand for control. She was tiny, too, in a sense. Even tall for her age, she embodied the pleasure of scooting a small dog around a tiled kitchen with a broom as it yapped and gnawed on the bristles.

But oh, Renjun, really. He hadn’t been quiet, either, but he’d listened first. He’d introduced himself in the midst of a groggy, barely-woken escapade and asked what instruments they played, gotten a handle on their banter, then squeezed himself in like a social savant.

“You’re not like other freshman,” Linnie remembered Thane blurting with a sort of buoyed amazement.

And Renjun had somehow suppressed the pride and excitement of having heard that like he’d swallowed a tub of ice and was undergoing violent brain-freeze.

Small stature, braces, sleepiness aside, he’d sat up and said, “Thanks. It’s the exhaustion.” and Thane had laughed so hard he nearly barfed.

He’d been a fourth year favorite—and yes, they did have favorites. Sarwendah attacked that dynamic like a feral cat, but it wasn’t like Renjun being a favorite excluded her from being liked. At least originally. Charlotte was somewhere between the two of them, chill and smooth, and was sorely missed in some ways.

Tamyra and Naveed were gone, now, having been merely a swatch from the fourth years to legally chauffeur, but Thane and Jordan were in Linnie’s class, too, and with her had seen the full arc of Renjun and Sarwendah crashing and burning.

“Look at that,” Jordan said now, pointing her finger across the overgrown lawn behind the band room to where Renjun sat in a loop with three other boys. Everyone was on lunch break—a grand half-hour of R and R. As section leader, Jordan was naturally invested in the goings-on of her section, but it was also novel to see Renjun sit with anyone after some eighteen months of pure social self-sabotage.

Perhaps that was mean. He hadn’t asked for his anchor to be cut loose back in second year. But Linnie also hadn’t ever had a friendship so symbiotic that she’d fall apart if they left. Jordan and Thane were probably the closest friends she’d ever get this early on in her life, and she was fully prepared to part ways with them when they left for different universities.

All the same, it was nice to see him glowing again. He shaped his gesturing arms around words and concepts and bent his spine with a laughter that blended in with that group of four.

“I’m seeing, uh, Risi’s kid. I don’t remember his name,” said Thane, snapping his fingers dully over his crossed shins. He shoved half a sandwich into his mouth in thought.

“Jacob,” Linnie suggested, spearing into her pasta. She was good with names, but the saxophones were a far stretch from her confident zone of knowledge.

“No,” said Jordan, “it’s something East Asian. I remember—HEY RISI!”

Risi, halfway across the lawn on the other end, jumped out of her skin, a full-body flush flashing up under her dark coloring. She pushed at her kinky curls, huffing out a breath, and crawled up out of her own small circle of friends to cross over to them.

Back in her group, one of the other fourth years was opening a banana via the wrist-flick method and it dislodged itself from the stem entirely, hitting a third year in the chest. Laughter bawled up, and Linnie had to hide her humor while Risi twisted to acknowledge the small disaster as she walked away and rolled her eyes.

“Do you have to yell at me?” she asked upon her approach, shaking off the stupid antics of her section, and Jordan reached out to her on needy instinct alone. She caught the other section leader’s ankle in the slide of her hand, and Risi’s blush didn’t dissipate, though she didn’t attempt to shake her girlfriend off.

“I missed you,” said Jordan.

“That’s not it,” Risi nipped, and Jordan beamed, her own blush rising up her neck like dalmatian spots.

“What’s your third year’s name?” Jordan amended.

Risi looked over at the group of four under the drama room window and bit her lip around a smile. “Jaemin, why? Are we celebrating?”

“Is Jaemin, too, a social outcast?” Thane asked, a sort of self-amused drawl coloring the roll of his voice.

“Renjun’s not a social outcast,” Linnie corrected around a mouthful of sausage and penne. If anything, Sarwendah was the social outcast between their two third-years. “He’s just—”

“He went through some shit,” Jordan said kindly, and tugged on Risi’s ankle to get her to fold and sit. “What’s up with Jaemin? Dish.”

“Jaemin—” Risi said, weak for her girlfriend and therefore sitting. She did immediately take one of Jordan’s baby carrots, though, and dipped it in the little package of hummus. “—is so sweet that people find him unnerving.”

“Huh,” said Thane, moving on from his demolished sandwich to peel at one of his three tangerines. “Is he weird about it?”

“Like,” said Risi, brow crinkling, “inappropriate? No. You just—you know when you meet someone so stupidly kind you think they must be faking?”

Linnie hummed, acknowledging the concept. “And is he?”

Risi shrugged, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, really, since he’s never been anything but.”

It was kind of like those aphorisms suggesting that everyone would just be better if they chose to act like it. Smile more, and you’re happier. Compliment people more, and you start seeing others as more beautiful.

“Alright,” said Thane, “good for him.”

“And that’s Jeno, right? Kyla’s assistant?” Jordan pressed on. “The new hair is throwing me off.”

“Yeah,” Risi said, both agreeing and confirming. “And guard.”

“Fourth one is Donghyuck,” Linnie offered. “Renjun’s best friend.” She knew this because she’d seen enough of Renjun his first year. She’d sat down with him at lunch every once in a while and had seen Donghyuck at his side every time.

Jordan’s mouth popped open in shock. “That fucker—”

“Hey now,” Risi protested blindly.

“No,” Jordan pressed, “no you don’t get it. That boy moved away and Renjun became a fucking recluse.”

Risi’s eyes sparkled as Jordan doubled down so far as to swear again, a smile ticking up in her lips. “A ‘fucking recluse’?” she teased, and Jordan’s neck blotched up again.

“I mean,” said Thane, “it’s probably not like Don…” He looked to Linnie.

“Donghyuck,” Linnie said.

“Donghyuck,” Thane mimicked and gave Linnie a nod of thanks, “probably had any control over that.”

“Let me be indignant,” snapped Jordan, and Thane raised a hand in defense, popping the entire tangerine in his mouth and saying no more. “If he leaves and Renjun starts being sad again, I’ll hunt that boy down I swear to god.”

For the most part, Linnie was sure that Renjun hadn’t noticed any of their efforts to reach out and comfort him. Jordan was particularly aggressive, though mostly behind the scenes. She’d downright told the tech he was stupid to even _consider_ Sarwendah for section leader next year, microcosmic politics be damned.

Thane had done the most last year, wheedling Renjun out of corners during band socials and their pre-football game hype times. Linnie had focused on the small gestures, but even then…

They all could have done more, but they also had lives. Linnie was taking three AP classes and a stick up her ass from her dad. She didn’t always remember to be there for Renjun, but she hoped the need was declining.

“Well, it’s nice they’re all together,” said Risi. “I think I remember Serenity having a hard time last year.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Jordan, eyes narrowing. Serenity had been last year’s guard captain, and while she hadn’t been the warmest of people—in fact, Linnie remembered her being downright aloof to everyone but the color guard, leadership, and a select few others—she’d been damn good at what she did, from choreography and technique to leadership. “Is he trouble?”

Risi frowned, latching onto a loose thread from the hem of Jordan’s tank top with her fingers. Jordan’s attention immediately diverted downward, pulling the thread away from her and breaking it off with a firm yank. “I don’t think so?” Risi said eventually. “I don’t remember. He’d been having a hard time, or something.”

Thane snapped his fingers and recalled everyone’s attention. “Remember the shit Sarwen pulled in the band room last week?”

Linnie could practically see the cogs spinning willy-nilly in Jordan’s brain the second he said that (to no apparent effect, evidently failing to remember the specifics; Jordan didn’t hold onto information that wasn’t hers to know). “Didn’t she make fun of his dead mom?” Linnie said, perhaps indelicately, and where Jordan’s mouth had opened, it now closed with a harsh click.

“Right,” Jordan murmured. Jordan had actually very much taken the brunt of Sarwendah’s bullshit. Ms. M had called her to her office, and the result had been a sound warning from Jordan to Sarwendah about not being a public asshole—telling Sarwendah not to be an asshole at _all_ was like squirting lemon juice in her eye. She just got meaner. So “public asshole” was about as far as might be effective. It was harder to wrangle her when she acted out while none of the fourth years were watching.

They all knew at least _some_ of the bullying Sarwendah did, but it was difficult to catch it all, and Jordan had been fighting her all year.

Hence telling the tech that he shouldn’t be considering Sarwendah in the first place.

It was…hard to know what to do with bullying. Like, god, it seemed so straightforward to tell bullies to cut the crap and stand up for the one getting bullied, but it didn’t always work like that. Get an authority, people said, like the authority figures were willing to do anything without proof because their jobs were at risk if a parent pitched a hissy fit. Teachers didn’t run the schools—not even the administration. Not at Granite Heights, anyway, where most people could afford paying the band fees, and if they couldn’t, it was kept under wraps and handled silently. The parents ran everything. What they wanted, happened.

Risi caught and squeezed Jordan’s hand, and Jordan gave her the biggest puppy eyes Linnie had ever seen—like holding hands was a god-given privilege. “Let’s cross our fingers that things work out, right?” Risi suggested, getting up from where she sat to pull away from Jordan and leave for her group again.

“Yeah,” Jordan said, holding on until the last second as Risi chuckled at her. When Risi was finally gone, Thane pegged Jordan in the stomach with one of his tangerines.

“I can’t believe you got her to go out with you. You’re disgusting,” he said, revolted mirth peeking out under his tone, and Jordan put her nose up in the air.

“She likes me.”

“We can tell,” Linnie mused, popping the lid back on her tupperware. Jordan seemed pleased.

Back under the drama room window, Jaemin was leaning into Renjun’s body, hand on his knee, while Jeno stretched his legs out and pressed his hands into the pavement behind him. Donghyuck sat close to Renjun, but not as close as Jaemin, and thoughts started whirring a little in Linnie’s brain.

They looked tight-knit, and Renjun looked genuinely happy. Linnie just hoped it wasn’t solely because Donghyuck was there.

Sarwendah, on the other hand, was on the other side of the band room where she always was, probably, sitting alone. She’d given up sitting with other groups sometime last year when she’d adopted a nasty streak and other band members started ignoring her. She’d always aimed high—sitting with older band members instead of the underclassmen, but unfortunately for her, upperclassmen had a lesser tolerance for bullshit.

Sighing, Linnie packed away her lunch things and stood up, as she nudged her lunch bag toward Thane to take care of. “I’m gonna go check up on Sarwen.”

Thane raised his eyebrow but nodded anyway—just because Sarwendah was a handful didn’t mean she ought to be punted to the side and ignored. As far as Linnie figured, she had probably taken the collaboration news fairly hard. The fact that Renjun was dealing with it well was a downright shock.

All three of his upperclassmen were damn proud of him.

Jordan gave Linnie a salute and off she went, arranging in her body how she was going to interact with this viper of a sixteen-year-old. Sarwendah wasn’t just nasty—she could be deliberately and effectively mean to anyone she cared to be. Linnie had been at the receiving end of some insults made in bad-taste, even if they _had_ been said under Sarwendah’s breath.

Still, she located her near the arts breezeway, sitting cross-legged on the picnic bench and scrolling through some social media feed on her phone.

When Linnie sat herself down across from Sarwendah without an immediate greeting, Sarwendah’s gaze snapped up and held with a defiant annoyance.

Linnie arranged her forearms on the tabletop and pressed her fingertips to her mouth, meeting Sarwendah’s gaze head-on with a quirked eyebrow. Youngest or not, Linnie knew how to play this game.

“What?” Sarwendah snapped. “I haven’t done anything.”

“A hello would have done fine,” Linnie muttered against her fingertips.

“I didn’t invite you to sit with me,” Sarwendah said, voice still tight and curled, and made an attempt to bury herself back into her phone.

A glance at her watch told Linnie that she had some six minutes max to do any good.

“How’s your mom?”

For a moment, Sarwendah’s knuckles went so pale they turned almost green, and Linnie was genuinely prepared to dodge a thrown phone. This little lady was on the verge of getting physical some 80% of the time.

“Why do you care?” Sarwendah said, though her tone dripped more vulnerably—like a torn thing.

“Because you’re my underclassman and I’ve cared about you for over two years, now,” said Linnie evenly. “Just because you push people away doesn’t mean we don’t care from a distance.”

Sarwendah wrinkled her upper lip, and Linnie couldn’t claim to know Sarwendah’s inner workings, but she figured that her mini bit of wisdom wasn’t appreciated. But—

“She’s fine. She calls me on the weekends.”

A tight little knot of anxiety loosened in Linnie’s chest. She’d been prepared to throw the towel in if Sarwendah deflected two or three more times.

“Are you missing a phone call for today?” Linnie asked, tentative and removing her fingers from her lips.

“No,” Sarwendah said, eyes trained on her phone screen. “She knows to call tomorrow.”

The exhale Linnie had to let go from her lungs was one she tried to release discretely. Sarwendah hadn’t historically reacted well to pity, but Linnie truly couldn’t imagine only getting one phone call per week from one of her parents, and she wasn’t even particularly close to them. If the way Sarwendah had talked about her mother first year was any indication, the girl positively _worshipped_ that woman.

“Do you know when you’ll see her in person again?”

Sarwendah’s eyes went a little glassy, index finger curling and picking at the lock button of her phone. “No.” One shuddering breath later, Sarwendah added, “But my birthday is coming up and I’m—I don’t know.”

Linnie scraped through her brain for some rusty information she may have filed away, but came up with scraps. “I don’t quite recall your birthday, but will you let me guess the month?”

When Sarwendah looked up, the glassiness had faded, but she now had a sort of squint going on. “Sure. I don’t know yours at all, though.”

“Neither does Jordan and we’ve known each other for five years,” Linnie said, brushing that bit off. “January.”

Sarwendah’s face downright crumpled, and Linnie almost lurched with how startling it was to receive it. “It’s too far away, isn’t it?” Sarwendah asked, and Linnie didn’t know how to move as tears slipped out from under one of Sarwendah’s crabbed hands. Her thin shoulders trembled and—god, she really had a knack for bringing her underclassmen to tears (it tugged at tendons in her throat; she didn’t do well keeping tears back when other people cried).

“It’s better than nothing,” Linnie said dimly, swallowing, biting so hard down on the words _I’m sorry_ that it almost hurt. “She’ll be happy to see you, then.”

“I don’t think she _will,”_ Sarwendah said in the same tone that she used for biting words aimed at others, but this time, the blow landed elsewhere.

Linnie had never had this kind of conversation with Sarwendah—something must have been strung very, very thin for her to reveal as much as this, and Linnie was stuck rubbing at her mouth in anxiety and her eyes grew hot with borrowed emotion.

“W-will you push me away if I hug you right now, Sarwen?” Linnie asked, quietly, to the small face hidden behind folds of shining black hair and callused fingers. She wished that she could tell Sarwendah that she didn’t have to prove herself to everyone—that she’d probably be better for everything if she let a few things go.

Sarwendah shook her head and tossed her phone onto the table next to her finished lunch, and Linnie stood up to circle around the table and gather this cramped, stiff body in her arms.

As Sarwendah cried, Linnie tried to put words together that would fit, if only a little. “Sarwen,” she said quietly, pushing her hand into her lovely silk hair and smoothing her fingers along her scalp, “please know that you’re enough just being yourself.”

It wasn’t nearly as punchy as Linnie wanted it to be, but she wasn’t good with words. Sarwendah pushed her face into Linnie’s neck all the same, wet and shuddering.

“None of you _like _me,” Sarwendah said, and.

Well. Linnie had to be honest.

“We don’t like being _around_ you because you’re _mean,_ Sarwen.” Sarwendah inhaled sharply and tried to draw away, but Linnie held on for just a little longer. “We like you just fine when you’re just you. It takes time to fit in, okay?”

Sarwendah made a blurry little sound against Linnie’s skin, and that was when Linnie finally let go. She wasn’t given an opportunity to check Sarwendah’s expression—she was very good at using her hair to keep her privacy as she drew away and put an inch of distance between them.

“Whatever,” Sarwendah said, but it was more of a gasp, wet and not great, but Sarwendah said _fuck off_ if she wasn’t listening, so this was an improvement.

“Whatever,” Linnie agreed, and gave Sarwendah a parting touch down the back of her head where her hair crimped from the ghost of a ponytail. Linnie withdrew with two minutes plus five of prep to spare, though she took the time to walk backward and say something. “You’re going to do great tonight.”

She watched Sarwendah’s shoulders cave in a little, but knew she needed to leave her alone.

* * *

* * *

There were two cars in Yukhei’s family—one for his mother and one for his father, and if one of the cars just happened to be free, Yukhei or his brother could take it. It was an infrequent thing, however, unless it was fairly late, and so it was usually Yuqi who carted him around. She got cash and puppy eyes of thanks for it.

But tonight, he had a car.

And he hated it.

That was the other thing.

Driving was just. So damn awful.

Yukhei crawled out of the driver’s seat upon arriving at the school parking lot, letting go of a massive breath and shoving his keys in the pocket of his jeans, bag dragged over his shoulder.

The sky was the vaguely-greenish grey and pink of rainbow trout, and the parking lot was almost entirely empty. In the near distance, he could hear the swell of music pushing against the massive football bleachers, and for a moment, Yukhei simply leaned an arm against the roof of the family’s second car and enjoyed the sensation of not directing around a death machine.

No, the beast was silent and cooling.

Yuqi was at work for half the evening, picking up one of those odd shifts she had to at her parent’s shop, but she’d promised she’d get to the performance in time. It was important to all of them to see this. They hadn’t missed one yet—they’d often missed the competitions that were hours away, but never one of the two performed at Granite Heights.

Yukhei was just super early. Like forty minutes early. He’d had to plan for the seemingly super likely event of getting lost on the seven-minute drive over.

Pinching the lock button of his keys in his pocket, he started his trek to the stadium, taking in the music and matching it with the quiet bits and pieces Jaemin would hum when he felt like it. When he felt safe.

God, Yukhei was worried.

His breath tightened in his lungs as he skipped up onto the pavement, turning back around to scan the parking lot for one of the Na’s cars—he knew both of their colors and license plates, but out of the two-dozen scattered vehicles, he didn’t see anything condemning.

He was still hoping that they wouldn’t show up at all.

Every possibility he’d thought of was a dead end when it came to Jaemin’s parents arriving. What was he supposed to do when they inevitably took him back? Just pray that he’d see Jaemin on Monday again intact? It was such a low bar to ask whatever deity oversaw these things to please, please let him see Jaemin without noticing another bruise, or a wince, or worst of all that goddamned blankness.

They didn’t always hurt him physically, but they always hurt him.

Which was why going to this event felt so necessary. It wasn’t a massive grand gesture to go to a band showcase—just a caring one—but it also let Jaemin have support from people who cared for the right reasons. That was the idea. That was what Yukhei wanted; Jaemin deserved love at every turn of his life.

Besides, marching band was impressive, and now that he knew Jeno and Renjun, he could appreciate it a little more widely. It wasn’t just a twisting mass of bodies with Jaemin cradled somewhere within their ranks—there were people in there.

Yukhei approached the lattice fence as the band cut off and the drum major yelled for them to stand by. From the border, he could see the dozens of water jugs scattered at the sideline, some distance from the bigger instruments of the pit.

The sections of the band were color-coded. Yukhei remembered Jaemin telling him once that each section custom-designed t-shirts at the beginning of the year. The one Yukhei remembered had lettered out every section-member’s name, Jaemin’s hugged somewhere near the middle, with the front sporting a drawing of some niche inside joke Yukhei didn’t get but still found funny.

From the look of it, the saxes were a soft orange this year, the guard a sleeveless purple, and the pit a baby blue.

He could feel the weight of Jaemin’s phone in his back pocket as he slipped through the gate leading to the bleachers. He’d kept it charged because of a distant worry in the back of his mind that if Jaemin were forced to admit to his parents that he’d let his phone die—well. God, it was bad any way the issue was cut.

Jaemin had never done something like this in all three years of Yukhei knowing him. He could count the number of times Jaemin had slept over at Mark’s or his own on one hand before this year—all of those times having needed hefty planned excuses just so they could go be inappropriate teenagers for one night.

Hell, Mark was one of the most disciplined people Yukhei knew and he’d still done more shit than Jaemin had ever done. Jaemin didn’t even skip school even if he was ill, as careful as he had to be in doing so. Mark regularly skipped classes if he had a migraine too difficult to handle. In the past two months alone, Yukhei had witnessed Mark be a truant some three to four times—all because his teachers liked his genius ass enough to let him.

Yukhei didn’t like to be stressed, but he could admit that he was right now.

As he started to scale the bleachers, he recalled vividly the raw skin at the back of Jaemin’s neck not even two weeks ago, shirt dripping wet, expression tight and calm. Jaemin had said something about a pitcher, and all Yukhei could imagine was someone sliding the rough stoneware bottom down his spine. He couldn’t figure out how else an injury like that could have happened, and that image suggested one of his parents had tried to knock him out with something that could have killed him.

Maybe that wasn’t what had happened—Jaemin rarely shared the details of anything like that, and Yukhei’s imagination was limited, but god if it didn’t matter. Nothing Jaemin’s parents did was accidental except for birthing him.

Yukhei shuddered as he sat down halfway up the home bleachers, slotting his hands between his knees. He wanted Yuqi with him, but there were thirty-five minutes to go and a whole lot of tracking Jaemin through the formations to do.

Sometimes they were fluid, sometimes they were angular, and every so often the flags slipped up and out in a loud burst of color as the music swayed. Yukhei’s favorite part was when they would inevitably synch with the guard perfectly—one of them would toss a rifle so high it actually did look like a weapon, and everyone would hold their breath, waiting for it to hit the ground.

The fact that he’d never seen anyone drop for that moment blew Yukhei’s mind.

It took some time for Yukhei to locate Jeno out in the fringe, though not long. It was easy because Jeno was, as far as Yukhei could tell from such a massive distance, the only masculine-presenting guard. _Good for him,_ Yukhei thought, then wished a little keenly that he could have Jeno for his own team. But he knew what band was like. Jaemin made it obvious enough that there wasn’t time for anything else.

It took a little longer for Yukhei to pick Renjun out of the pit, especially with the sky dimming and the stadium lights not quite ready to rumble. Rows above him, Yukhei could hear the director talk to one of the other staff about the sousaphones in the back of the current repetition they were going through.

Yukhei didn’t know what to look for, nor did he know what a sousaphone was. He liked music—a lot—and he knew a lot about Jaemin’s sax and how reed instruments worked, but some of this stuff went over his head.

Jaemin he’d been able to spot from the start. Altos were the smallest saxes on the field, and Jaemin was the thin, lanky one with hair that fell in his eyes. Risi must have given him the spare section shirt, because he was drowning in the one he was wearing, the hem tucked into his athletic shorts. He wondered if Jaemin was wearing Jeno’s clothes or if he kept some spare changes in his band locker.

With a puff of an exhale through his nose, Yukhei pulled out his phone to text Yuqi and Mark, letting them know he’d arrived, then let his bag drop at his feet to fish out one of his textbooks. He wasn’t expected to pay attention the entire time, just like if Jaemin ever came to his practices, he wasn’t expected to either.

He allowed himself to get lost in the pages of his biology homework rather than worry his mind into balls of wool thinking about how things would go when the parents started showing up.

Yukhei’s phone lit up from where it sat on the bench and forced Yukhei to pause halfway down page fifty-one.

**From: Markkkk**

_theyre not there yet right_

_im like 5m away_

**To: Markkkk**

_nope_

_don’t text and drive_

**From: Markkkk**

_moms at the wheel_

Yukhei let out a shallow breath. They’d talked about this—Mark bringing his parents. He’d never done it before for any prior band performances because it just didn’t cross anyone’s minds. Mark’s parents _liked_ Jaemin, but they weren’t his friend or particularly close with him. There wasn’t any big reason to go out of their way to accompany one of their sons to a friend’s showcase.

But Mark had been thinking about asking this time. For the pressure, they’d thought, praying that Jaemin’s parents would be more careful if there were people they really knew in the crowd.

**To: Markkkk**

_what about your step_

**From: Markkkk**

_nope_

Yukhei had thought about asking his parents to come, too, but his parents weren’t close with the Nas. In fact, Yukhei had spilled to his parents the stress of Jaemin’s abusive household, and they would never even dabble in the thought of reaching out to them in a friendly manner except for sheer politeness.

Mark didn’t have the comfortable luxury of divulging certain things to his parents—he could, but it was far more complicated.

**From: Yuqi!**

_Might miss the very beginning :(_

**To: Yuqi!**

_do you want me to record it?_

**From: Yuqi!**

_Yeah, actually_

**To: Yuqi!**

_no prob I got this_

**From: Yuqi!**

_Hell yeah_

_B there soon ish_

They had just a month and a half or so under their belts (Yukhei had their first date on his calendar still, but he didn’t have the recollection on hand), so this would be her first time seeing the band perform. He was excited for her to see just because it _was_ so cool, but he hoped that it wouldn’t be marred by concern. He’d probably record the whole thing anyway.

Yukhei dragged his fingers along his textbook pages, staring out at the football field’s faux green slowly being lit up. The stadium lights sounded like massive moths, humming over the chopped-up licks of sound as the band repped moves and forms and practiced out knots in the formations until they were blurry shapes and Yukhei realized his eyes were dry.

“Lucas! It’s so nice to see you!”

Yukhei finally blinked as he turned, smile already blooming, almost forgetting his textbook was in his lap before standing. Mark just narrowly stepped to the lower bench so that Yukhei could meet the hug Mrs. Lee offered up. He hadn’t had a moment with her since school started.

As he hugged her, stooping low for her height, Mark’s step-dad was right there behind her, smiling in that crooked way he did because of the weak nerves on the left side of his face. Mrs. Lee had been with Mr. Kang for the majority of Mark’s present life, and though Mark wasn’t spectacularly close with his step-brother, their family was fantastically functional. Reserved, but bright.

“Dabin’s got homework?” Yukhei asked over Mrs. Lee’s shoulder as she squeezed him tight, then let go and patted his face before squeezing past him and sitting down further down the bench.

“It’s a streaming night,” Mr. Kang said, doing the awkward shuffle where it was go-for-a-handshake, then wait, no, maybe-just-a-bow, then ah, whatever, just-a-shoulder-pat. Yukhei laughed and let him slip by, then finally shared a smile with Mark, who looked a little strained.

“What’s he speedrunning?” Yukhei asked the general Lee-Kang air, and settled back where he’d been sitting, Mark now settled next to him and the parents flagging out from Mark’s right side.

“Hollow Knight,” Mark said, twisting the ring on his thumb in a circle. His parents were already checking out a little, trying to pick Jaemin out of the band from down below. “He let me play some of it and there’s a crying baby.”

Dabin wasn’t like…an edgelord or anything, but for a fifteen-year-old, he had some interests Yukhei really couldn’t get a handle on.

Yukhei moved his hand down over Mark’s knee and watched him let a breath go like he had pushed him in the lung instead. “When was the last time you laughed?” Yukhei asked, forcing his voice to be quiet, almost slipping under the buzz of the stadium lights and Ms. M calling to the band over her loudspeaker _(huddle up!). _

Mark’s bottom lip jutted out for a moment of vulnerable complaint before he bit it back in, set his hand on top of Yukhei’s, and shrugged, picking at the dried skin of Yukhei’s cuticles. “When you dropped half your cookie at lunch yesterday?”

With a laugh himself, Yukhei hummed and conceded, flipping his hand and holding Mark’s in place. Three years wasn’t such a long time for a friendship, but it wasn’t going to stop Yukhei from feeling like Mark was one of the best friends he’d ever have.

“Did you find Jaemin?” Mark asked, nodding to the group of sweaty bodies down on the racetrack that circled the football field.

Yukhei pointed out the orange shirts and located their lanky friend in the lamplit mass, then went on to point out Jeno and Renjun.

“Is Donghyuck down there or up here?” Mark remembered, and Yukhei had a genuine moment of shock and disappointment that the friend had slipped his mind. Donghyuck was only barely newer to him than Jeno and Renjun were, but he had still slipped his mind.

Mark, on the other hand, was being mildly forced to acknowledge certain…efforts, so it made sense that Mark remembered to recall him.

“Shit,” Yukhei murmured, and stood up to look around at the sparse aggregate heads populating the stands, “I dunno.”

A moment later, Mark’s mom grabbed Mr. Kang to pull him over to another set of parents already seated, evidently ones they recognized, and Yukhei just barely spotted Donghyuck standing against the fence of the racetrack. “There he is,” Yukhei said, pointing. “Should we invite him up here? The view’s better.”

“We’ve got time,” Mark said, “yeah.”

Yukhei nodded, catching up his bag in case some renegade parents decided to rifle through his stuff (expect the unexpected), and it was a downward skip back down the bleachers.

“I’m worried,” Mark said when they hit the bottom where no one would hear them, “but I don’t know what to do about it.”

Yukhei was reminded of the knot of pressure in his lungs, the concern making it that much harder to breathe. “Nothing.” It was the only thing he could conclude. Jaemin, back at the very beginning, had directly asked them not to take his choices away from him—to not tell people who could change things, to not tell their friends or parents the extent of his abuse—and it was the least they could do. There was little else. Yukhei's parents knew, but they didn't _know_ just how bad everything was, and that was the mini truce he had come to for accommodating Jaemin's plea.

They circled around the bottom for the narrow, fenced walkway between the track and bleachers, Mark letting out a long breath that almost whistled at the end it was so narrow. Then they were approaching Donghyuck, whose shoulder blades were digging into the wire fence.

“Donghyuck!” Yukhei said the moment the boy turned his head toward their approach, and Donghyuck’s neutral expression turned a little brighter. “Come up onto the bleachers with us.”

“The view’s better,” Mark added, and Donghyuck let loose a small breath of a laugh before pushing off.

“With you there, I’m sure it will be,” Donghyuck said, looking straight at Mark.

The shock of laughter that erupted from Yukhei’s stomach had him almost missing the flash of red that overtook Mark’s neck and the small, mortified “God—” that Mark blurted.

“You’ll miss the show, though,” Yukhei ribbed, walking with Donghyuck as he moved toward the fence’s open gate. Mark lagged around the steps up to the bleachers, lifting his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose as if he might be regretting mentioning Donghyuck at all.

The passing, twisted diamonds of the fence cut up Donghyuck’s face, but the glow of particular mischief stayed consistent. “You’re right,” Donghyuck admitted. “It was just too good to pass up.”

Yukhei would ask him to go easy on Mark, but honestly, Yukhei couldn’t perceive it doing any damage. If Mark wanted to talk about it bothering him, he would, but it was kind of fun to watch his best friend flounder a little and try to get his bearings. He’d had a total of two minor dating experiences, and, as far as Yukhei knew, no one really flaunted any crushes over Mark—he was a shot too high for most people.

Not that Mark really knew that.

Donghyuck pushed past the gate, but didn’t go much farther, freezing mid-step. Yukhei did too, frankly, looking over and seeing the Nas arrive through the farther gate. Over by the stairs, Mark had gone slightly pink to a blanched-out parchment color, fingers spinning around his ring in the single second he could afford to look less than composed.

It was as if all three of them took a single breath at the same time as the Nas narrowed in.

Then exhaled together, all at once.

* * *

* * *

Every breath and heartbeat a baby took would move their entire body.

Lee Kyungtae remembered this vividly. He remembered every moment he held Jeno as a small child, so small and so perfect—all of those moments compiling into one.

In the first few weeks, a baby’s sight was so blurry and kaleidoscopic that the most they might see is the suggestion of a face, but Kyungtae’s vision, as an adult, was perfect. He had memorized every inch of that tiny body from the precious, intricate joints in Jeno’s fingers to the bewildering beauty of his ears.

_“You made those,”_ he remembered he’d said to June. “Incredible.”

_“I made those,”_ she’d said calmly. _“I wonder what he’ll do with them.”_

_Beautiful things,_ Kyungtae told her every day now.

He went straight from the office to dinner because Jeno wouldn’t be home to meet him, holing himself up for a brief meal at a poké restaurant and gnawing at his thumbnail while sketching out flags and guard shoes on his napkin.

Jeno had shown him “maybe eighty percent” of his full routine, but it didn’t compare to the entire production—it never did—and it was a privilege to see the course of its development over the entire season. June had loved the semi-finals and finals of marching band more than Jeno’s swimming competitions; they were fresh, new, artistic in a way that June always found fascinating.

Her only major creative outlets had been singing and dancing, unrefined and purely her, near-yelling at her boys to join her in her shimmies and laughter while something bubbled on the stove.

He pocketed the napkin for Jeno to see because just as Kyungtae always wanted to see Jeno’s work, Jeno always wanted to see his. Besides—he’d started sketching more again to wean his brain off the wine on weekends, and he thought Jeno probably knew and would see those drawings as symbols of something returning.

Kyungtae could not deny him those emotional footholds.

On top of everything—the napkin, seeing the first performance of the completed show, seeing his son do something he loved just in general—Kyungtae was excited to meet the second object of Jeno’s affection. He knew precious little, in all honesty. Everything he knew was straight from Jeno’s lips: Renjun was talented and bold, Jaemin was genuine and kind (the latter of which he could confirm, now, at least by his own first impression); they were both in band, and Jeno had been pining for a long time; they made him nervous and happy in equal measure; and Kyungtae had Chenle to thank for Jeno finally acting on his crushes.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Lee,” Chenle said brightly upon being picked up, and Kyungtae almost didn’t hear him over his preoccupation of touching bases with Mrs. Zhong.

“Nine o’clock at the latest, if you could, but you have our number,” she said, watching her son slide into the back seat of Kyungtae’s car.

“It usually ends before eight-thirty,” Kyungtae reminded her, “but if I take them anywhere after, I’ll be sure to have him back.”

“Don’t let him wheedle more time out of you just because we’re friends,” she warned, gesturing between her body and Kyungtae’s, and all he could do was snort because—

“I know.”

_Sneaky, _she mouthed at Kyungtae, and he grinned. “You look better,” she said aloud, and while it was good to hear, he wasn’t sure what to do aside from give her a nod of appreciation.

She let him off the hook with that, and he let out a deep breath on his way back to the car, bracing himself a little for what information Chenle might unleash on him from the back seat on their way to the Park’s.

“Jeno won’t tell me what happened last night,” Chenle said immediately before Kyungtae even managed to turn the key.

Kyungtae barely curbed the impulse to laugh. “Nothing happened last night,” Kyungtae said, starting the car and easing away from the curb.

“God, you’re the _worst,” _said Chenle, and how was Kyungtae supposed to manage not laughing at _that? _Chenle had grown into a sort of comfort with Kyungtae that did not extend to exploitation—they weren't friends, but Chenle talked to him freely under any of the usual social respect. Being the "worst" was audacious of Chenle, but Kyungtae knew what he meant, and to be completely fair, he _did_ just deny him the information he obviously craved.

“You think I’ll sell out my son to you?” Kyungtae wondered after stifling his humor. In the rear-view, Chenle’s eyes glittered with so many thoughts that they nearly overflowed. “When have I ever given the impression that I am anything besides Jeno’s secret-keeper, Chenle-yah?”

Chenle grumbled at the endearment Kyungtae had tacked on, pressing himself against the car door with his pastel purple hair scrunching up against the glass. “So something _did_ happen,” Chenle supposed under his breath.

“I’m not sure,” Kyungtae said smoothly. “You’ll have to ask Jeno.”

It tickled him that his son was so…private, he supposed was the word. Chenle had a lot of strings like a curious, harmless spider—thread after thread giving him tiny vibrations to his fingertips that allowed him to situate himself in the world around him. Kyungtae had never gotten the impression that Jeno minded Chenle knowing anything or everything, and he understood that the streak of reticence in Jeno was rarely an unwillingness to be vulnerable or honest.

He was thoughtful, and he took his time. Sometimes waiting for him to say something amounted to nothing. Sometimes he needed to be nudged. Sometimes he brought everything up himself.

Sometimes, Kyungtae should have known his son better than to force him to tackle an issue he never should have needed to deal with in the first place.

Guilt and pain stirred in his gut.

His drinking hadn’t ever amounted to an addiction—drinking on only weekends wouldn’t do that to most people—but he should never have slipped so far, and seeing the stress in Jeno’s face…

The body-shaking breaths of a newborn were all too similar to the wracking sobs of a grown boy.

Kyungtae sighed.

This was going to be his first weekend without alcohol to take off the edge in a long time. So far, it wasn't an issue. Since Jeno had been at the high school all day, Kyungtae had simply gone into the office for extra work, but a part of him baulked at the emptiness of a Sunday. Even with Jeno present, an entire free day moved like something different, and being perfectly conscious of every absent moment wasn't going to be easy. It was worth it—he'd always known that, though he'd obviously not had the courage to face it.

Picking up Jisung was a much more minor chaos and derailed Chenle from any more attempts to glean mysteries from Kyungtae, not that he would have caved.

The secrets surrounded Jaemin, of course, having stayed over just the night prior—Chenle knew Jaemin had been there, but apparently that was the extent of knowledge that Jeno had allowed. Jaemin was a skinny thing for his height, face sharp and youthful and sweet, and his eyes had shone with that kindness Jeno had told him about.

“I’m sorry to impose,” Jaemin had said in the same breath that Kyungtae had said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jaemin.” and the brightness that had lit in Jaemin’s eyes had been a small happiness.

Very little had happened that night, all things said. Kyungtae had prepared dinner while Jaemin sat at the island and told him the story of how he’d met Jeno. Jeno had been a little odd, but that was only to be expected: a subdued urgency and desperation had made him fidgety and quick to set the table while he’d wrestled with the furious anxiety of adjusting to learning how to talk to his significant other while his dad occupied the same room.

Eventually, he’d seemed to kind of throw in the towel and talk openly about Jaemin’s makeup skills, which, to Kyungtae’s curious delight, seemed to render _Jaemin_ mute. A tug-o-war of nerves. It was such a precious thing to witness.

Jaemin had occupied the downstairs guest room, never once journeying to the second floor nor outside to where the pool was, though there was a moment where Kyungtae had deliberately removed himself. Jeno and Jaemin had sat on the floor in the entrance room, Jeno pressing on the bruises on his hands, and Kyungtae rather thought he knew what words were being said, so he let them.

In Kyungtae’s opinion, the best moment had been when Jeno journeyed to bed after supplying Jaemin with necessary nighttime goods and gave Kyungtae a look of such overwhelmed and bewildered affection that he’d looked positively lost.

“You did well,” Kyungtae had encouraged, and Jeno had done this sort of short and spasmodic, full-body writhe. “You did!”

“Oh god,” was all Jeno had had to say, and yes. Kyungtae had laughed.

Now, as Kyungtae pulled into the parking lot of the high school, Chenle leaned forward between the two front seats and queried, “Has Jeno told you about what else might happen tonight?”

This was an odd thing to ask, Kyungtae thought. “He has not,” he said as he pulled into one of the farther parking spaces and unlocked the doors. “Is he planning something I need to be aware of?”

Chenle’s mouth popped open for a moment, then he shut it and shook his head as Jisung gave him a forward stare.

_Secrets on both sides,_ Kyungtae mused. Jeno didn’t tell him everything, and that was more than fine for him. Jeno deserved space and privacy just as much as any adult so long as he was safe. So far, Jeno hadn't betrayed that space and trust.

Kyungtae wasn’t…perfect or even an ideal parent by a long shot, but he was trying to be both his own virtues and June’s while still…

The anniversary of her death had already passed, but there would never be enough distance to lessen the pain.

He was trying, and he knew Jeno knew that. He hoped Jeno saw that Kyungtae knew Jeno was trying as well. Heaven knew it was obvious in every day of Jeno’s life.

“He’s not planning anything,” Chenle said with an evenness that felt real, so Kyungtae let that original question slip to the back of his mind as he climbed out of the car.

“Okay,” he said easily. “You two excited?”

“I’m excited to see Jeno conduct,” Jisung offered and ah—yes. That too.

He’d almost forgotten.

Sometimes Jeno’s passions, despite how steady and consistent they were, developed and shifted so quietly that Kyungtae nearly missed their significance entirely. Raising Jeno was a life full of subtleties.

“I am too,” Kyungtae said, smiling as he led the trek across the parking lot. The band wasn’t playing, which meant they were likely getting sorted for the start of the show, but his watch said they still had ten minutes to spare.

“You can meet Jaemin and Renjun’s friends,” Chenle offered up, and well. That was a little daunting, but Kyungtae could roll with the social punches. It was nice to know that all three boys had such good friends because honestly, Kyungtae wasn’t sure if his friends would have gone to one of his art showings back in high school when he submitted some of his works for judging. That being said, he never really went to _their_ gigs or games, either.

“I’ll be sure to say hi,” Kyungtae assured Chenle, but he would most likely let the kids be with each other. He’d sit on the fringe and maybe force himself to introduce himself to another parent or two. June used to swear on her life that he could be wickedly charming if he ever decided to stop being shy, and her life meant the world to him, so.

To none of his surprise whatsoever, Chenle and Jisung skipped ahead of him to reach the high school stadium’s fence first. Because of that, he definitely missed a massive social intersection of boys Kyungtae definitely didn’t recognize (aside from Chenle and Jisung, of course), but he didn’t miss the way the entire group of five quieted when he approached. Their whispering had been fierce, but Kyungtae wasn't privy to the goings-on of everything, obviously.

“Oh my god,” said the one with brown waves and bright eyes after a heavy moment. “You look just like Jeno. Are you his dad?”

“Technically, he looks like _me,”_ Kyungtae said warmly, and it was like a nonverbal buzz rippled through the unrecognizable trio while Chenle laughed loud and clear (and if that didn’t tell Jeno that they’d arrived even from meters away, probably nothing would). “Shall I find my own seat and you can work out your own thing?” Kyungtae asked, already moving toward the bleacher stairs, and Jisung nodded, giving a tiny thumbs up.

There was a pang of distant memory as he smelled the turf, felt the grooves of metal under his shoes, heard the buzz of stadium lights, and remembered June being here with him two years ago.

He let his breath pass, inhaling, holding her close for a moment as he climbed the bleachers and turned his head to look out onto the field for his son. He couldn’t escape her and had long decided that he wouldn’t, nor wanted to, so he let himself feel the pain of loss and yearning from missing her as he watched the band diffuse across the end zone.

He found Jeno just as he sat, smoothing his hands down his slacks from the view of the highest bench. Even from a distance, he was so utterly distinct—from his gait to the way he fit himself in the open air.

Technically, Jeno looked like him, but Kyungtae was rather proud to share a resemblance, and even more deeply proud of June’s confidence and assurance shining through their son as he got older, as he recovered, and most of all as he allowed himself to be happy again.

Whether Chenle’s laugh really had warned him or Jeno simply had an instinct for knowing Kyungtae was present, Kyungtae watched Jeno turn at the end zone and look high up the bleachers, equipment secure in his arms, purple shirt and blond hair and all.

When Kyungtae waved, Jeno waved back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? I'm hoping that you guys were able to enjoy this. Like. _high-key_ crossing my fingers.
> 
> It's unlikely that I'll finish before the 22nd of Sept, but we're almost at the 1-year anniversary! Thank you to everyone who's read along for this long ♡ as well to any new readers!! Thank you to all of you. Your encouragement and lovely thoughts (or quiet support!) are truly appreciated ;;
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



	31. All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously on BAS:  
Linnie reflects on meeting the current third years; she talks with Sarwendah.  
Yukhei arrives at the high school; he, Mark, and Donghyuck are faced with Jaemin's parents.  
Jeno's dad, Kyungtae, picks up Chenle and Jisung; they arrive at the high school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter ahead. You guys probably have a feeling for what's coming. _Please_ take care.
> 
> Reminders:  
Kyungtae is Jeno's dad. (June is his mom.)  
Mr. Kang is Mark's step-dad.  
Mrs. Lee is Mark's mom.
> 
> CW: Jaemin's parents, charged/hurtful conversation  
TW: severe anxiety, panic, threat of harm
> 
> This one took a lot longer to write because it is...very important. I can only hope I did it justice.

The sun was down by the time Ms. M called the band kids to the bleachers fence, the lights massive plates of bright white that put the entire stadium in high contrast. The pit members slipped through the gaps between their instruments, but lagged so they could remain on the fringe and avoid the humidity of the sweaty marchers. The sousas, drumline, color guard, and pit kept to the back, buffered by a swathe of some fifty-to-sixty kids.

Jaemin was near the front, sliding his thumb and forefinger over the plastic snap hook of his neck strap. Sweat shone at the sides of his face, having dripped down his temples and from under the hair in front of his ears. He shouldered away most of it, the sleeves of his orange shirt slightly discolored, but a consequence of the elective—if the band kids didn’t use their sleeves, they used the fronts or necks of their shirts or just let the sweat drip into their eyes because they were in the middle of a rep and couldn’t do anything about it. Burning eyes was a band syndrome.

On a colder evening—though it was slowly dropping in temperature—the tops of their heads would be letting off steam. Many of them had dropped to parade rest out of habit, instruments nestled in their arms and feet relaxed shoulder-width apart. They all smelled like fresh, active exertion and heat, and some of their tongues were pressing up to the roofs of their mouths where the aftertaste of plastic sport’s water bottles tinged their palates.

Toward the back, Renjun slid closer to where Jeno stood and brushed shoulders with him. Jeno smiled, and that made it worth disconnecting from his section. Jeno had one arm cradled around his flag, his saber somewhere on the sideline of the football field, but Renjun’s hands were free, and he had the option of brushing pinkies with this precise member of the color guard.

Jaemin was someone they couldn’t reach.

“First complete run for an audience,” Ms. M said as she got to the bottom tier of the bleachers and leaned on the railing. There were parents and families arriving in active time, but it still wasn’t all of them. They started on the hour and it was thirteen ’til. Kyla, at the front of the band, had her watch ticking down to the second. “How do you feel?”

Ms. M invited their answer in the form of a thumb’s up by holding up her own. It jutted up to the sky, which engendered some shy confidences to be more optimistic. Jeno’s thumb was straight up, Renjun’s tilting slightly to the left, and Jaemin didn’t put up a thumb at all, excused from the task by not being entirely visible.

Even if she was asking about the show, he didn’t feel great. He knew, logically, that even if he refused to look up at the stands, the volume of people in his periphery meant that if his parents hadn’t already arrived, they were likely arriving.

And he was right, though he wouldn’t know it. Between the stadium bathrooms and the metal steps, Mark had gone perfectly still as he stared Jaemin’s parents in the face, formulating thought after quick thought of how he could possibly respond to anything at all when he implicated Jaemin by just be being there at all.

The last text he’d had to send Mrs. Na said this: “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him today.”

Sent yesterday.

Mr. Na wouldn’t necessarily recognize him—the last time Mark had seen him personally had been in passing months ago, and he saw him about as frequently since becoming friends with Jaemin. Mrs. Na, though, knew him very well. She knew his house. She knew what he looked like coming down to breakfast on a Sunday morning after rolling out of bed.

It was incredibly upsetting for his mother to be best friends with Jaemin’s.

Mr. Na was wearing the same clothing he probably wore to work, though Mark wouldn’t know why he would go to the bank on a Saturday. He was handsome and chiseled, but in all the ways Jaemin wasn’t because Jaemin got nearly all of his genes from his mom by the looks of it.

Except for the shittiness. He was her in features and not in soul.

She approached confidently with a stinging step, husband at her side and ready to ignore Mark, but she, herself, did not have that intention. She stopped and nudged Mr. Na to continue up the stairs, murmuring a courtesy request under her breath, then leveled her nose with Mark, who had dug his nail along the edge of his ring in stress.

“Jaemin’s here, then?” She said, and the way she delivered it was colder than the air, even as it dropped entire degrees by the minute. “Did he invite you?”

“It’s on the band calendar,” Mark said, pulling on the paper files in his brain so hard they almost ripped. “We’ve always come to the showcase.”

“‘We,’” said Mrs. Na, and looked over her shoulder as if sensing Yukhei. Her eyes tracked the distance between them, a safe, wide berth, as Yukhei didn’t so much as flinch. He stood in the low gateway with one hand on the upper bar, his true, six-foot-something size. Donghyuck stood only slightly behind him, expression and body language blank.

Yukhei only ever looked like he hated someone when he was face-to-face with Jaemin’s mother.

She turned back to Mark. “Who’s the boy?”

“That’s just Yukhei, ma’am,” Mark said before he could stop himself and he saw the frightening slow-motion jolt of Mrs. Na looking like she was going to hit him, his own body flinching on instinct, and Yukhei letting go of the fence with a harsh jangle, taking one step forward.

Whatever Mark’s body expected didn’t come, but his heart still shook up against his skin, and he blinked against stars of anxiety as he tried to turn his gaze back up to her face.

It was hard to look at her. He hated looking at her.

Jesus, God, he was so afraid of her.

“It’s funny,” she said, looking all the world like she hadn’t just made an aborted motion to slap him.

Mark let go of a breath in his chest. Carefully.

“I feel like I’ve just missed him the past few days,” she said, then added, “My son.” like a reminder. “I don’t know what he’s been telling you to make you think it’s okay to keep him away from me, but consider the fact that he’s lying to you.” She was cold and hard and stood so tall that Mark felt smaller than her even with the inches he had on her stature. “You’re almost an adult,” she said. “Start acting like one.”

She passed him up the stairs like a hard wall. Like she could bump him from half a foot away and make him fall and scrape his knees like a two-year-old.

Mark listened to her climb the stairs with the back of his brain, barely processing another family crossing the way to the same stairs, and only after a few seconds did he suck in breath after breath after breath.

His body was shaking.

He was shaking.

He could hear everything in his ears like everyone in the stands were jabbing his face and the hollow his throat and his stomach with their fingers.

Yukhei caught him, somehow, before the heat of emotions too strong to process made him cry, buried Mark’s face against his chest, and told Donghyuck to go find them a seat far away from Jaemin’s parents. He handed him his backpack to set down as a marker, shrugging it off his shoulder—overall, it was an invitation for Donghyuck to take a moment for himself, maybe, and then come back when he’d taken a breather or was joined by them first.

And Donghyuck didn’t realize he needed that moment until he had it, clinging to Yukhei’s over-weighted bag and feeling the dull metallic clunks of the bleachers as he ascended the grooved steps.

Donghyuck imagined he could feel the gazes of every single person on his skin, but most of all the two adults in his periphery, sidling along the third row and too close. Way too close.

He hadn’t even come near to imagining this part of his trip; it felt completely left-field to find out about these shitty parents who were so frightening that they literally haunted every moment. Moments that _should_ have been completely enjoyable.

In some ways, he was pissed off about it, because he wanted this trip to be entirely good. Selfishly, unrealistically, he had daydreamed that it would be flawless and centered on only him and Renjun despite choosing to come at a time when Renjun was under immense stress. Not only that, but he knew, too, that Renjun was moving on—not from their friendship, but from their loss of proximity. Hilariously, he’d come right when Renjun was finding people other than him to rely on.

He shouldn’t have expected daisies and roses, and he certainly couldn’t let the tiny feeling of neglect lie on Renjun or Jeno and Jaemin. He had a scapegoat, and it was Jaemin’s dumbass parents.

Realistically, now, and more reasonably with every step he took across the stands, he resented that there existed parents like Jaemin’s. Even Donghyuck’s own, whom he was convinced on the worst days took everything of meaning from him, weren’t anything like Jaemin’s.

And, he reasoned, if they weren’t a problem, everything would be better.

With these complicated issues now flattened and two-dimensional, he was more at ease.

In the midst of this mental overhaul, Donghyuck had crossed all the way to the far middle stairs, taken the steps two at a time, then had set Yukhei’s backpack down lengthwise at the end of an open bench. He briefly, mind halfway somewhere else, leaned forward to ask the family behind to watch his things (“We’ll be back in five—”) as a breeze brushed the people down.

This high in the stands, it was almost a different climate, and he wished he had brought a jacket or flannel. That chilling breeze had his hair trying to get into his eyes and goosebumps hiding underneath his tee, and the sky was completely dark, now. When he started back down the stairs, he saw the band start to move from their huddle near the fence.

They dispersed, dropping their dot books by their water bottles and rehydrating for a last moment of downtime. Donghyuck took his time, mind whirring but not doing much.

He hoped—he really didn’t want to catch Mark in the middle of a breakdown—but he hoped that they’d be there and back to normal and ready to head up, because the band was starting to move toward the end zone.

And god it just. Felt weird to be alone and surrounded by parents who maybe also abused _their_ kids.

(He felt sick.)

Donghyuck shivered to shake off the tail-end of a breeze just as he hit the bottom. He refused to look back up the stands as he made his way over to the descending stairs, deeply regretting his choice to stalk so far from them and make himself stand out like a sore thumb for Mrs. Na to scope out and assess from _literally_ three benches up.

He skipped right down the stairs, looked to the left for one second, and then was witness to the very frightening moment of Chenle bursting through the far gates like a socially robust kitten. Jisung tailed after him, and Mark, to the left, stepped out of Yukhei’s personal bubble as he wiped his glasses down.

To Chenle, the scene didn’t look incriminating, and perhaps it was because Mark hadn’t worked up to crying, even if he smudged his glasses. His eyes were clear, his hair a little messy, but so were Chenle’s purple locks, and Yukhei’s face shifted too fast into a pleasant beam to suspect anything.

To Jisung, something felt wrong, though it would be hard to say what. Was it Donghyuck stepping down from the bleachers with too much nonchalance? He didn’t know him very well. Was it the tension in Mark’s shoulders? God, he didn’t really know him all too well either.

Jisung glanced toward Chenle for any sort of vibe check to no avail.

But Jisung was right and Chenle was not because Yukhei, calmly and peacefully, was honest and said, “Heads up, guys. They’re here.”

It made Chenle’s last step toward them harden and loosen all at once, so it almost looked like a mistake or a stumble. “His parents?” Chenle asked. “Does Jaemin know?”

“How are we supposed to tell him?” Donghyuck said—with no heat, but with the casual bitey-ness that the way he spoke often carried, whether he meant to carry it or not. The others were already used to it.

“We wouldn’t tell him if we could,” Mark said.

“Unless he asked,” Yukhei added, which was true, but Mark resented it.

“It’s fine,” Mark said. “Nothing we can do about it.”

“They’re on the third row, so it’s not like kicking them down the stairs would do much,” said Donghyuck, and the silent moment of lexical processing immediately following gave way to this sort of choked laugh of disbelief from Mark, and Yukhei hid his own smile behind a big hand.

It was mean, but there was room for it because even Jisung and Chenle didn’t quite like Mrs. Na, even if they’d only been exposed to her once. To Mark, it was deeply tickling, and to Yukhei, it satisfied things he tried to never say out loud.

“Then do we find a place to sit?” asked Jisung, genuinely nervous about what they should do and therefore speaking up for the first time.

Before anyone could answer, though, Jeno’s dad came through the gate and it had everyone turning with the sort of flinchiness a nervous conversation developed.

And, though Kyungtae had thought it was Chenle’s earlier laughter that may have alerted Jeno to his arrival, it was actually just because in the exact moment that Kyungtae entered the space between the stairs and the stadium bathrooms, Jeno could see him perfectly right through the fence.

Jeno was looking, of course, but it was easy to spot him while Jeno made his way to the end zone, the clock ticking down.

The color guard saw Jeno lag as he took a second to process how bizarre it was to see his dad collide with his slowly-growing social circle. One of the guard slowed down with him, leaning in to ask him if everything was okay—it was a reflex for all of them to worry, to keep one eye on Jeno and the other on their own business.

It wasn’t like he was a ticking time bomb, but whenever his mood went south, quiet and burned, all of them were affected.

“Who is it?” she asked, then was startled when Jeno turned to her with a type of confidence she wasn’t accustomed to.

“My dad,” he said, his eyes, colored green, swimming and bright.

“Oh,” said the guard member with an undertone of significance. None of them knew everything—not even Tuyet or last year’s captain—but they knew what or who was important to him.

He took his place in the end zone with the rest of the guard folding together with the tips of their ears tilting so this little tidbit of news could make its way around. From the front, one of them shared that her partner had come, and that bubbled into a loose, pleased chatter while they could still break formation.

Kyla, in the meantime, was fiddling with her watch with a nervous obligation. Ananya, beside her, was unsticking then re-sticking and unsticking again the velcro on her gloves.

The band was waking up, acquainting themselves with each of their own private needs.

Renjun was letting his brain melt into the background until every sensation was a neat blur, breathing soft and deep as he wondered if his parents and sister had arrived yet and if Donghyuck was sitting with them or Jaemin’s friends. There was an anxiety scratching hard somewhere in his head, trying to get out, that he was staving off from preparedness and absent thinking alone.

The pit itself had hauled their instruments away toward the front of that long line of wind instruments, and there were adults scattered throughout to help them both quickly move the bulky equipment back into their zone and get the big podiums out for the drum majors.

There was nothing to mess up. Not for Renjun, not for Jeno, but maybe for Jaemin, who was far down the line of winds and trying to be at peace with the fact that his parents were probably here. They were probably here and very likely already had their eyes on him, ready to track him, ready to see if he visibly messed up because Jaemin was figuring out—solely in his head—that it was, just maybe, validating for them to see him fail.

And he wasn’t sure which option would be more liberating: not messing up and proving to himself that he was worthwhile even if his parents had already decided that he wasn’t, or letting himself mess up for his own sake, knowing that there was nothing he could do of worth to them anyway.

The obvious answer was to simply do his best, but the difficult thing was that his best required him to put them out of his mind completely, and even if he was coming to terms with the idea that maybe they didn’t deserve to be thought of, they still had power over him.

Whether he was ready or not, though, right on the dot, Kyla called them to attention and everything and everyone fell into line.

It was a weird thing, marching band. There would always be some people who didn’t know the music well enough or didn’t do the sets well enough to have the confidence to go in and lose themselves, but the setting did provide for it. If they were ready, it was like stepping onto a moving walkway with earbuds in, listening to a song known by heart as every person listened to the same music, stood on the same strip of ground pushing steadily forward.

There was a certain lucidity that could be lost if they knew their show well enough—where when they hit the fifty-yard-line and dispersed to their starting dots, everything fell away. The whole band breathed, knowing something together that anyone outside them did not.

Under Kyla’s commands projecting straight from her stomach and through her chest like she would never need a megaphone, the frozen muscles of the band breathed, fingers on their keys, their valves, the stadium lights. They still wore shorts and section tees instead of uniforms, still were teens under sunburned skin and greasy sunscreen, but it was nice to be a part of something as the world refused to be anything more than scrambled.

Kyla saluted; bellowed, _“SET.”; _every instrument snapped to playing position; her hands broke through the air as they set time for Ananya, who took it, and the band, who felt it; and the muscle memory began.

To the crowds in the bleachers, it was fascinating and strange. There weren’t a lot of things like it—seeing things break and flow into shapes and lines and figures, then remembering that there were teenagers down there somehow mimicking something bigger than themselves. Music that was built to be fascinating, that bucked up when the horns lifted to the box to blare a singular chord. The color guard, who tossed and swept colors bigger than two bodies in three dimensions. The kids at the front, whose mallets moved faster than felt reasonable. The crab-walking battery on the field carrying harnessed drums half their body weight and moving their sticks in unison. The entire band turning for the ballad and a sudden color guard member, ready for them, conducting where no one had seen him climb the podium.

For the individual members of the band, there were patches of consciousness whenever they braced themselves, made a mistake, or their reed made a wonky sound or their chops gave out. Their shins burned, a set hit just right, they missed a toss, or nailed a sequence or remembered, for a moment, that their parents were watching.

To the director, the techs, and seasoned parents, it was imperfect and not quite close. A little too heavy on the crescendoes while never quite reaching a _piano_ with intervals too skewed, too wide, and forms not set in the right way so that when a block rotated, it was rows and then diagonals and then columns. There were marchers who faltered, who bobbed, who misstepped, and jumbled sections of music that needed a yelling band director to instill the fear of god in them (or so the common laws seemed to dictate).

And yet it was satisfactory. And the beginning.

At the show's end, the band stilled. The parents stood up and clapped and hooted.

Adrenaline leaked down the tiny rips in the band kids’ muscles, sweat shaking down the sides of their faces. They were called to attention, breaths coming fast. Kyla counted them off, and the entire band exited the field in marching ranks and still as one entire body. The pit pushed their instruments, the color guard dashed for their gear, and a small selection of parents took to the leftovers.

And finally, as they hit the end zone, the illusion of something bigger broke.

They were small again.

Ms. M had descended from her perch as soon as the last note had ended earlier, and she was there to meet them on the running track. She did nothing like berate or correct them, but she did say they did well, and even something as minor as that was high praise.

“You did well,” she assured them. “This is a good start.” Every section was skimmed by her eyes, instilling a tired, hopefully confidence regardless of how they felt about this woman.

With so few words, they were released while still regaining their breath. But even after, as everyone shook themselves free and began to jog for their things, their bleachers, to smooth out the trembling, Jaemin couldn’t quite find his lungs.

He stood there like a block of ice melted but trapped in its container, saxophone slack in his grip, paralyzed senselessly.

Jeno knocked into him, breaking into his atmosphere like a drop of color in the midst of gray. He only barely avoided Jaemin’s mouthpiece as Jaemin wheezed from the impact, and Jeno tugged him in by the waist, knocking foreheads.

“What do you need?”

“I don’t know.” The words were immediate and numb as they fell past Jaemin’s lips. Jeno’s eyes were so green that for a moment, Jaemin could almost forget he was being watched by anyone else. The air between them was heavy with the smell of sunscreen and sweat.

There was no need to elaborate. Jeno just held him for a short time, trying to soothe him, then =let him go, but only gently, and Jeno slid his hand to the back of Jaemin’s neck over the strap, over the scar on his skin. Jeno caught Renjun’s approach out of the corner of his eye and reached out for him, capturing his hand just as he slid through the slowly swelling crowd.

They held hands, but Jeno let Jaemin float, sure that comforting him with touch was more damning than redeeming.

And he would have been right, and it didn’t ache because Jaemin had had just that one second of full eye-contact and a stunning moment of surety amidst the individual words of _I don’t know._ He had words in his head that were trapped between meat and bone that he needed to say, and he was afraid, but he _would_ say them.

“What do you not want?” Renjun asked, eyes on Jaemin with their fiery confidence turned down low to a soft flicker. He was the least sweaty out of the three of them, but there was still a high fading flush in his face from performing.

“Don’t leave.” It’s all Jaemin could give as an answer. It’s all he had.

And that particular response was as surprising as much as it wasn’t. They were only waiting. Between all of them, Jeno looked alive—like he was strung out and brimming across an entire mile. Renjun looked sure and calm even as his hand knotted so hard in Jeno’s that his knuckles turned white and pressed up against Jeno’s bruises.

Jaemin looked exhausted, breaths coming short, eyes blinking a little too quickly.

“How was your show?” Jeno asked in the precious moments they had left.

“It was good,” Jaemin said, words clotted with emotion. “A good run.” He rubbed at his throat, closed his eyes, and took a long drag of rubbery night air.

“Perfect run,” Renjun said, and neither of the other two boys were shocked. Inherently, they all knew a perfect run wouldn’t exist until everyone had one all at once (and therefore wouldn’t happen at all), but on an individual level, it made sense. He was tilting a little toward Jaemin as if to shield him even as he wouldn’t touch him. Jeno squeezed Renjun’s hand. “You?”

“Not perfect,” Jeno said, and smiled only at Renjun because Jaemin’s eyes were still closed.

The last moment held for a few seconds more until it all shattered at once.

Mark broke through the crowd first, dragging his parents, who in turn dragged along praises and were suddenly having to introduce themselves to two new boys, then there was Yukhei and Yuqi, the latter of whom had arrived at the tail end of the opener. Donghyuck towed Renjun’s parents and sister behind him. Then Chenle and Jisung arrived and, well, Kyungtae was there, too, but a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of actively-participating people surrounding his son.

Jeno crinkled his eyes at him in acknowledgment and humor.

And then them.

The temperature dropped, Jaemin’s heart sucking inwards the moment his opened eyes strayed sidewards. Mrs. Na tucked herself up to his ear—Mark’s parents had turned their backs to introduce themselves to the Huangs, but the moment Mark had his eyes on the Nas (so many of them did), he jerked hard on his mother’s elbow—and she said, “Home, _now.”_

In the same breath, Mrs. Na turned her face to Mrs. Lee with a graceful, pleasant brush of her fingers through her long fringe, curled her grip around Jaemin’s wrist, and said, “Sorry we have to slip away so fast, Youngmi. We have to wake up early for—”

“No,” Jaemin said. It was weak, but he said it, and he took one step away from his mother with his hand coming up to pry her fingers away from him. His gaze skidded across fourteen people, eyelashes shivering in a flash of fear.

“I can take him home, Mrs. Na,” said Yukhei, speaking up from behind Mr. Kang like he didn’t stare her down with distrust in his eyes less than an hour earlier. “We have plans to celebrate.”

“Jaemin has an appointment—” began Mrs. Na.

Jaemin broke free from her hold, and for a moment she lurched like she was going to catch him again, but this time scrape her nails hard down the inside of his wrist. He pressed his hands up against his saxophone and took a breath in.

“We’ll get him back in time,” said Yukhei, pushing forward a bit so as to not be so peripheral.

“Well,” began Mrs. Lee, tone like a suggestion, “you probably shouldn’t keep him if they have an appoi—”

“I don’t have an appointment,” said Jaemin. This time his voice was firm.

“Yes, you do,” said Mrs. Na, and her other hand tapped back against her husband’s thigh as if to wake him.

Mr. Na started, “You skipped it while you were—”

“I don’t have an appointment,” Jaemin repeated. For approximately every adult in this group of fourteen, there was a blinking bewilderment sitting tight in their heads like they were seeing a child refuse to enter a restaurant. All around them, the band crowd was starting to thin, but they were all still here, sixteen people plus Jaemin, who felt distantly like he should vomit.

Mrs. Na took a massive breath and turned to Mrs. Lee with the body language of someone gently amused, exasperated. “He’s finally entered his rebellious phase.” She turned her eyes to the other adults in the group, lips polite as she reached for Jaemin again. “I’m so sorry. Let me just talk to him for a moment. He’ll come around.”

Jaemin shrunk away. Deliberately, he sank back against where Jeno and Renjun still stood next to each other, locked by the fingers, and Jeno caught Jaemin by the hip.

The snort that Mrs. Na gave was almost indelicate. _“Jaemin,”_ she said.

“I don’t think he wants to go, though?” said Mark, shattering the exclusive focus between Mrs. Na and her son. To Mark’s parents it seemed so sudden and sounding so very unlike their son, but to Mark, there was iron lying heavy in his jaw and a tremble in his lungs.

Mrs. Na stared at him as if he had grown another, significantly more disgusting head. She didn’t shake the expression quite fast enough, but it was hard to process for the people who didn’t know what they were seeing. Mrs. Huang crooked a finger above the heads of Mark and his parents, urging.

Renjun shook his head with a jerk, free hand hovering up to hold onto the curved bell of Jaemin’s saxophone where it rested cold against Jaemin’s hip.

“Mark,” said Mrs. Na, just a shade away from gentle because of the curl in her lip, “I’m not the enemy here.” By her side, Mr. Na looked like a Grecian statue with his eyes slowly boring into his son while his wife looked away.

In a moment of terror, Jaemin could see a swear begin to form behind Mark’s eyes like a burning lash, his lip slipping up for a momentary flash of teeth. Jaemin spoke before Mark could call Mrs. Na a bitch in front of his own parents. “I’ll go home with you if you tell me honestly why you won’t let me go out with my friends,” he said, and it came out firmer than he thought it would.

“In _private,” _Mrs. Na said, like for some reason that would ease the ultimatum.

“No. _Here,” _Jaemin insisted, and it tore from his lips, stronger than anything he’d said in a long time. “Or,” he said, and he could feel the way Jeno’s fingers pressed into his hip—it was only then that he knew he was shaking. “Or, you can promise me something, because you _know_ why I haven’t come home.”

It was as if the hair that slipped loose from Mrs. Na’s ponytail was the needle hidden in her façade, and Jaemin flinched before he even knew if anything was coming—whether he was brave enough for it or not.

“Because you like to _torture_ me, Jaemin!” she said, snapping hard in voice only, though her nails bit into the skin of her palms. The Huangs wanted to leave—Ruolan was jerking her head to get Renjun to break away, but he wouldn’t. “Because you’re a brat!”

“I’m the only thing protecting you,” he swore, and his voice shook in his aching throat as he dug his shoulder into Jeno’s chest. He wanted to reach for Renjun’s hand, but was too afraid to move.

Those words did something odd to the entire group, half of them, as a whole, stunned by a claim they never thought they’d hear coming out of anyone’s mouth in real life.

The way Mrs. Na stared at him like if she could, she’d be holding a knife to his throat, made Jaemin feel like he was already dying. “I can ruin your life,” he told her, barely holding onto himself.

He told this to her for the first time in front of fourteen people who mattered because Mrs. Na _cared._ A socially delicate woman, always trying to keep her stride perfect and collected and straight, she cared what other people thought of her, and Jaemin was her single mistake.

The group was silent, Jeno and Renjun not willing to move.

Carefully, Jaemin straightened. “I’m going to go out with my friends. I will leave my phone on. I will be back before curfew.”

He could see all the things his mother could say behind her teeth, her eyes, her perfect makeup that he was slowly realizing was using the colors of the palette he’d hidden under her bed.

Jaemin turned his eyes to his dad and stared back at the marble statue of a man that did so well in hiding what he’d done. “If you promise not to t—”

“Okay!” Mrs. Na said, unnaturally loud, breaking through the dragging air of silence. “Nine o’clock, then?”

Jaemin’s throat spasmed with something he couldn’t name, but he nodded, and Mrs. Na rearranged herself like the bouquet of her person hadn’t started falling apart. She laughed and ran her fingers through her fringe. “I don’t know what came over me. That was extreme!”

It was extreme. It had been unsettling to most of them, but had shaken Mrs. Lee the most, who couldn’t figure out how not to stare. And her condition was made no better by her son, who said loudly as Mrs. Na started to turn heel, “You didn’t promise.”

There was a jilted moment as if Mrs. Na glitched mid-act, Mark deeply pushing the limits of what was acceptable while still under the protection of witnesses. She inhaled through her nose and rolled her tongue behind her teeth.

Jaemin so rarely saw her brimming but contained—he saw the one mask of perfection or her face stripped down, and then every so often he would see total, overwhelming apathy, but this was rare.

And just as terrifying to him because it was aimed at his best friend, whose face was bleached under the stadium lights in a thin sheen of stress, hands shoved in his pockets to hide the shredding edges of his poise.

“Promise,” he said as Mrs. Na stood still. “Both of you.” Mr. Na’s jaw corrected itself under the demand, Mark refusing to forget him.

Mrs. Na looked at Mrs. Lee, who looked equal parts mortified and paralyzed, unaccustomed to this behavior from her son. Mr. Kang had long given up on navigating this choked space, and the rest of them were in similar conditions, the Huangs with one respectful foot out. Yukhei, Yuqi, Donghyuck, Chenle, Jisung—all watching and still as a breeze skated through and brushed up cold against their faces.

For Kyungtae, the entire experience was like finding several hundred puzzle pieces in a box marked for fifty, but he was watching his son and letting this continue to be his realm uninterrupted until—if—he needed to act.

With a tiny lick of her lips, Mrs. Na’s face broke into a smile. It was perfect, white, pleasant, and thus unnerving. “I promise,” she said gently, somehow, somewhere between amused and gracefully conceding, and Mr. Na, always playing the harmony, stuck a thumb’s up like this was something casual or trivial, and said, “Promise.”

As they turned their backs to the larger group, Mrs. Na captured her husband’s hand, clasping onto her pretenses while their shell-shocked son found himself waiting for something drastic to flip everything on its head and crush him.

They all watched Jaemin’s parents leave the football field and cross the track, looking for all the world like they’d been on a date and had not been inches away from letting everything fall apart.

Mrs. Lee spoke first. _“Mark Lee,”_ she said, stinging, and Mark cringed away from her, backtracking toward Yukhei—not afraid of her, per se, but knowing just what kind of behavior he’d exhibited and why she was horrified by him.

“Eomeonim,” said Jaemin, and it reacted against her as if Jaemin had just gently tugged at the hem of her sleeve. She blinked, staring at Jaemin instead of her own son and seeing Jaemin differently for the first time in her life.

He looked ill. Still very young, but not in the way he ought to have been

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please don’t be upset with Mark. I’m really—” A gasp rattled up through him suddenly like his panic had finally gripped him, and everyone glimpsed a single second of Jaemin on the brink of a full breakdown.

Renjun moved instantly, releasing Jeno’s hand and his own grip on Jaemin’s saxophone, then stepping forward. He put his arms out a little and made a small pushing gesture that caused the adults to move an instinctive step back even as the kids broke off to create a little circle of protection around Jaemin—not from their parents, necessarily, but from the strangers and the rest of the band.

“Hey, so,” Renjun said, a smile shaking out the tension lines of his face even as he shivered from the heavy shock and chill, “I think a bunch of us want to go out for dessert or something.”

Three steps in, there was a good foot between the adults—just the Lee-Kangs, Huangs, and Kyungtae—and Jaemin’s breakdown. Renjun went up onto his toes for a second to make eye-contact with his dad. “I think all of us will make it home in time, and I don’t know if any of you had plans, but if we could have until curfew, that would be great.”

“Do you have enough vehicles?” Kyungtae asked gently, and Renjun was stunned the moment he actually looked at him, having not fully noticed another adult until he’d spoken. The shock froze Renjun in the middle of every thought because it was damn obvious that was Jeno’s dad speaking, and if he was wrong he’d eat his vibraphone. It was the cheekbones, the eyes, the sort of kitten curve at the corner of his mouth. It was a shock he hadn’t noticed, is what it was.

Kyungtae gave a little amused nod that broke Renjun out of his freeze on reflex, returning the nod with a jerk and a slight forward incline. “Um,” he said, brain rattling its gears to remember the question. He mentally ticked off his fingers, uprooting his eyes from Kyungtae’s face and letting them glance behind him, “we have—” Yuqi, Yukhei. “—yes. Just barely. Two drivers, si—seven people aside from th-them—”

“And they’re okay with driving? They can legally drive everyone else?” Kyungtae’s questions were still gentle, but it didn’t change that Renjun was deeply thrown-off.

“I think so,” he mumbled.

Kyungtae smiled at him, and _that. That was wild._

The same damn smile.

The Huangs weren’t terribly sure what they were looking at, but it was an interesting thing seeing their son (or brother) look like a deer in headlights in front of an adult.

“Yukhei and Yuqi, right?” Mr. Kang clarified. “They both can legally drive everyone else. Though Yukhei would probably prefer if Mark were driving.”

There was a moment of vague, mulling silence as the adults adjusted their expectations from being chaperones to being free.

“Our children our ditching us,” Mrs. Huang said, and Renjun was kind of proud of how clear her English was in that moment now that his brain was slowly starting to move again. “We can celebrate instead? With ourselves.”

Kyungtae laughed, and the air loosened, and Ruolan made herself known in that moment. “Hi, do you have another seat? If they’re going to—I don’t want—I’m only twenty,” she said pitifully, trying to side-step her parents.

_“Oh, she’s not a child anymore,” _Mr. Huang said, Chinese slipping out to rib his daughter, who stuck her nose up.

“Should be,” Renjun said, and it was weird to actively feel the world shifting forward. Behind him (as the adults settled on their intentions and Renjun told Ruolan to please not be a nuisance), the group of friends were making things work. Chenle and Jisung had engaged with Donghyuck with Jeno slightly between them and the pod of Yuqi, Mark, Yukhei, and Jaemin. Yuqi, who was brushing the hair out of Jaemin’s wet face and telling him again and again that he didn’t have to apologize, teasing him gently that his tears were really making quick work of whatever makeup of his was still intact. Mark and Yukhei stood on either side, assisting in words if need be, Yukhei holding onto Jaemin’s loose hand and petting his knuckles with his thumb.

“You did so well, Jaemin,” she promised. “That was scary, huh?”

And it was like she was talking to a kid, but it _did_ make Jaemin sob, silent. Always silent. Curling into her arms with one free hand as Yukhei held his fingers and Mark gripped his saxophone and touched his nape.

“Okay, Nana,” Mark urged, cradling the back of his skull as Jaemin held onto Yuqi like a lifeline. “We have to turn on your phone, then go get…pazookis or something and relax at the park. Okay? Let’s get you out of here.”

Renjun, at that point, was dipping into Jeno, who’d been revealing his colors lately in how he immediately reached for him and curled his fingers around him in some way. To Renjun, he thought it almost seemed subconscious. “Parents are going to go off on their own.” His sister was currently slipping in with the other three to introduce herself—thinking that these kids were startlingly young but that maybe the fourth years would be easier to talk to that sitting quietly and trying to fit into parent-ly discussions.

Jeno curved into Renjun when he told him this, making a brief exchange of information softer. “I gotta hug my dad,” he said, and—

“Oh, of course.” Renjun released him, and Jeno moved for his dad, now retreating, at a jog. Renjun watched Jeno ram into him, witnessed the body language of Kyungtae jerking from the impact, laughing, and turning around with a deep warmth that made Renjun look away to search for Jaemin instead.

Who, in turn, had disentangled himself from his pillars and was reaching for Renjun’s hand anyway.

Jaemin didn’t just _look_ wrung-out. He very obviously was. “Are you going to say hi to your parents?” he asked, words a little raw.

Renjun gripped his hand. It was hard for him to know what he was feeling when he hadn’t even had a moment to process anything, but he knew for sure that he was relieved to see Jaemin still here.

He’d fully expected Jaemin to be taken away, then to spend the night fighting nausea.

Most of them had expected that.

“Yeah,” he said. “Then we’ll pack things up and find _something. _I said—” Renjun hummed for a moment because he was starting to notice this little shine Jaemin was getting in his eyes and the quirk of a lip. “—I said I wanted dessert before but I could kind of go for some ramen. What?”

Jaemin swallowed, caught, then smiled very small with hurting eyes. “Thank you,” he said, words so small and so tough to actually say without beckoning tears again. Jaemin’s throat felt so tense it may as well have no longer been hollow.

Renjun hesitated for a breath, a dozen small affections running wild in his head. He let go of Jaemin’s hand to tug at his bare neck and press his lips to his salt-dried cheek. His two boys badly needed to be dunked under the shower, but that was okay. “You’re welcome.”

“Go…go say hi to your parents,” Jaemin murmured, voice almost not there at all. “I’m gonna go put my sax away.”

“Okay,” Renjun said, stepping back, but feeling the tug. Feeling the worry. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Jaemin nodded.

And it was the funniest thing, because it was usually Renjun who didn’t want to feel alone, but this time he didn’t want Jaemin to be. And more than anything he wanted to continue being there for Jaemin.

“We’re gonna talk, okay?” Renjun said. “Soon.”

Again, Jaemin nodded, clinging to that promise and that want to just. _Know_ them. Know Renjun, who wasn’t that same boy he bumped into less than two weeks ago but still had that somewhere. Know Jeno, who hadn’t made it obvious he had a crush on him at all when he found him in the guard room.

Something to look forward to. Something.

Up ahead, as Renjun ran to catch up to his parents, Kyungtae was reminding Jeno very briefly of Chenle and Jisung’s curfews before saying, “Your mother would have punched that woman in the face.”

Jeno tugged his dad to a stop, slung his arm around his waist, and squeezed him so hard it pretty much hurt—or it would if Kyungtae cared. “If you guys go to a bar or something,” Jeno mumbled into the side of Kyungtae’s chest, “get a soda.”

Kyungtae wrapped his arms around Jeno and pressed a kiss to his temple. “If something happens, call me.”

Promise against promise, and they weren’t negotiations, really, because they would both listen anyway. “I will,” said Jeno, so Kyungtae said, “Soda it is.”

It made Jeno laugh, which had been the intention, and Jeno released him. “I’ll tell you everything,” Jeno said, one more promise.

_“Go,” _Kyungtae encouraged, smiling.

Jeno beamed back, head already inclining toward where one of his boys—the one who had looked at Kyungtae like he’d seen a ghost—was approaching. A sixth sense for his loved ones.

And for the way everything was always happening around them, jerky and halting and hurtful, it was stunning for Kyungtae to see Jeno begin to smile like that again, for Renjun’s parents to see their son running up to them with less weight on his shoulders, for everyone to see Jaemin back there with a spine of strong human bone.

They all kept breathing.

They all felt the world move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...*inhales* ♡  
Some more chapters still left. 3–6? I'll know better when I tackle this next chapter.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for loving this story, reading along, telling me what you think, or just. Appreciating it in your own quiet ways. Thank you.
> 
> ][twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)  
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)  



	32. Jaemin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Jaemin chapter, and you've read up until here. You know a little about what to expect, so please take care. I hope to god I did this chapter justice. Thank you so much for your patience.
> 
> CW/TW: dissociation, panic, breakdown  
There is NO: physical abuse

Grocery stores took on an aura of liminality past eight-thirty that only deepened and condensed as time went on. Jaemin only knew this because he’d been stuck inside a 24/7 mart with his dad once searching for the next day’s potluck ingredients at eleven p.m., then again for another occasion at one a.m.. For those incidences, he’d felt afloat and unnerved in the people-sparse aisles and buzzing freezer sections, the faint beeping from the checkout stations bumping up against ill-fitting music.

“Unsafe” was how he would have described it at the time, as though his dad could feel confident leaving him in the pasta section without telling him he’d left.

It was different with friends.

Confronting his parents back on the football field had taken everything out of him, but watching half of his friend group secure a grocery cart like it would lead them to the holy grail made something wheeze out of his chest like gold.

Somewhere in the shake of mottled metal and automatic doors, Mark laughed and Jisung squeaked, a wheel went silly, and Jaemin felt pulled like a magnet even as his heart beat in arrhythmic reflux. He really loved them, and they almost made him forget.

They entered into the white and bannered store with a buzzy sort of energy, and Yukhei anchored the cart right up next to a table of end-of-the-day bakery goods. “I will guard the cart—”

Renjun snorted from somewhere at the back of their small posse. Yukhei pointed over Jaemin’s shoulder.

“I _will_ guard the cart,” Yukhei said to Renjun, “and all of you have five minutes to grab what you want and bring it back. No runni—hey! Hey _punk—”_

He just barely nabbed Mark, who had a fighter’s glint—tired, worn, defiant, and therefore the first to jab Yukhei’s buttons with a laugh beyond a playful scoff—before he darted away for a head start. He reeled Mark in by the waist and shoved Mark’s head against his chest as Mark gave a giggly but plaintive, _“C’mon.”_

“No running! Only speed-walking,” Yukhei said, voice just edging off a boom so as to not disrupt the entire store.

While Yukhei was busy fishing Mark’s phone out of his back pocket, Renjun hooked his chin over Jaemin’s shoulder. It washed a shiver through Jaemin like having a conch up to his ear, lulled back to an ocean he could almost taste. He slumped a little to make it easier for Renjun, then tried to find Jeno’s arm to grab. Before Jaemin could jab him in the ribs in the effort, Jeno captured and held his hand in both of his, warm as usual.

Though held and anchored, Jaemin felt bird-boned and tethered. If one of them let him go, he would rattle apart to the ground.

“‘Kay, I’m going to set a timer—”

“Why do we have to bring any of it back to the cart?” Yuqi asked from her position next to Ruolan, who had been sticking near Yuqi perhaps for solidarity if nothing else.

Yukhei’s bottom lip bunched up, eyebrows scrunching. “Because that’s the game.”

“But I can just pay for my own stuff,” she teased, tilting at him while he hugged Mark to his chest with an air of protectiveness, Mark’s captivity defining the conditions.

“And you still _can,” _Yukhei pouted. “But this is the _game.”_

“I’m down,” Donghyuck said. “Set the timer.”

Yukhei relaxed and, relieved that someone was vocal about their support, held Mark’s phone up to his captured face, unlocked it, and flipped through the apps. (“Why couldn’t you use your own phone,” Mark protested, shifting his feet to fix the awkward twist in his back.)

“Five minutes starts—”

Jaemin realized he had no idea what he wanted.

He had less than half an hour until he had to walk through his front door.

“—now.”

Renjun slipped away before Jaemin could even register the tiny kiss he left on his cheek, leaving him with Jeno, who was tugging him along by the hand. Jeno laced their fingers, Jaemin a puppy falling behind his leash until he gathered his wits. The group had scattered like minnows as Yukhei asked Mark to nab “one of those fruit cups with the pineapple and, uh, I dunno man, chocolate too I guess?”

Jeno’s quiet, crinkly smile was what made Jaemin stop lagging and fall into step as they made their way to the right side of the grocery—breads, bakery, beverages. The fresh bakery goods were meager pickings and no longer fresh, but it _was_ eight-thirty-six.

“Do you want anything?”

“Hm?”

Toward the other end of the store, Chenle laughed.

Jeno rubbed his thumb over the jutting knuckle of Jaemin’s own thumb.

“Craving something?” Jeno tried again. They were at the chilled beverages, and Jeno broke his steady gaze only to grab a chocolate milk.

His hair was untidy and needed a cut, the trim lines around his ear and nape encroaching. Somehow, his makeup was still intact, a cool and dark magenta to complement the green of his contacts and the pretty, light shade of his bleach. His eyelashes were straight and feathery.

“Did you bleach your eyebrows?”

Jeno shook his head, hair stiff with the spray that had kept it out of his eyes during the performance and kept him perfect now. Those eyes became crescents of amusement. “No. They’re already not very dark, so I pencil them in brown.”

“Oh. You’re very pretty.”

The laugh Jeno gave for it was very quiet, brief, fond. “Thank you. Do you want a chocolate milk, too?”

“I don’t like milk.”

“Chocolate almond milk,” Jeno suggested instead.

Jaemin nodded.

For a moment, Jeno hesitated like he’d thought, for a moment, about leaning in, but then he just held out his own bottle for Jaemin to hold while he opened the cooler door again and plucked out Jaemin’s default choice.

He only let go of Jaemin to trade beverages, then reclaimed his abandoned hand with a squeeze. He nudged him to start walking back with a tap of their linked hands to Jaemin’s hip.

Jaemin obeyed, then followed, feeling the calluses on Jeno’s dry fingers and the firmness with which Jeno held him.

He wanted a corner. Any corner to collapse in, to fold into, to exist less within. Anyone’s arms would have done the trick if he didn’t feel stripped bare by the never-ending exhale of the air circulation in this grocery store. If he wanted to be seen, which he didn’t.

Before they passed the bread, Jaemin stopped, and Jeno stopped with him.

The song over the invisible speakers switched, tinny and with bounce. There wasn’t a single person on this side of the store at that moment and Jaemin could feel every breath he took crawl into his lungs and lean against his organs.

Jeno searched Jaemin’s face with calm, slow, green eyes and a firm grip around his fingers and knuckles and palm.

“We have time,” Jeno said.

“I’m not okay.”

“I know.”

Jaemin took a shuddering breath in and looked away. All of these bagged breads were stacked on slanted wood shelves—seeded, wheat, white, gluten free. A tag was missing. The floor was scuffed. The donuts on the shelf were on sale because they were old. Jeno was wearing one yellow converse and one lilac, old, well-worn, cared for, still in lovely pastels. “Why two different colors?”

This one, Jeno didn’t respond to. He just reached to brush his milk-cold thumb under Jaemin’s eye where his skin had gone hot and wet. “Thank you for being here,” Jeno said, and the sob that raked through Jaemin’s chest was ugly and trembling.

“Thank you for not b-being tired of me.”

“Never,” Jeno mumbled. “Never.” He raised Jaemin’s knuckles to his lips and skimmed that soft touch over him, a warm butterfly kiss. “Let’s go back to the cart.”

Jaemin nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose where his mind throbbed like a hummingbird in pain. And maybe Jeno was leading him back so that it wasn’t just them in what felt like the middle of nowhere, or maybe it was so he could let Renjun take part—who dropped something in the cart then dipped away to weave himself under Jaemin’s arms and hold him like he was less than fragile.

The almond milk bottle bumped into the line of Renjun’s spine when Jaemin hugged around him and heaved through every inhale and every exhale as heat dripped from him in smearing streaks. “Get it out,” Renjun mumbled. “No one’s looking, no one cares, get it out.”

_We’re in a public space, _Jaemin thought, and like he was heard, Renjun repeated so gently, “No one cares.”

He didn’t want to be alone.

He didn’t want to be alone.

He didn’t want to be alone.

* * *

But things ended.

They ate in the parking lot with small talk and Renjun squeezed up against Jaemin’s side so that the gasping hole in his chest didn’t make the rest of his body cave in. Jeno held Jaemin’s hand in his hoodie pocket where his fingers wouldn’t lose their warmth.

They had less than ten minutes of standing in the parking space between their two cars and sharing in the dredges of each other’s energy.

Mark and Yuqi did not cut curfew close. Since Jisung, Chenle, and Jaemin had to be back by nine, it was the executive decision that everyone would be back home by nine. So it was Yuqi driving Jaemin, Renjun, Ruolan, and Donghyuck home with music playing low and soft.

Jaemin leant against the window where the glass was cold and leaking through his skin, fingers knotted in his lap, Renjun’s hand warm on his thigh. He hadn’t rejected his hand for holding, really, but Renjun had maybe read him right and let him become less. Less raw, more cold.

They drove past trees, dying flowers, stop signs, cross-walks.

“What will you be up to tomorrow?” Yuqi was asking, and Jaemin hoped it wasn’t aimed at him. Donghyuck answered anyway.

“I leave on Monday, so I’ll just enjoy my last day with him,” he said.

“God, you’re flying alone, huh?” she said. “Flying alone really fucks me up.”

“It’s alright. I thought it would be worse.”

Yuqi leaned out the window to punch the gate code in at the gate to Jaemin’s community. The orange light behind the little rectangle of a screen brushed her knuckles tangerine.

Jaemin’s breath was fogging up the glass, so he closed his eyes and listened to her window roll up.

“Do you have any layovers?” asked Ruolan. Yuqi turned the radio further down when it transitioned to some ads.

“Just one in Denver. It’s two hours, I think.”

“Gives you lots of time to get to your other flight,” Yuqi said.

“For sure. There are a bunch of really weird conspiracy theories for that airport for some reason.”

“Are there?" Yuqi continued, "That’s wild. I want to hear about that, but give me a second—Jaemin? Jaemin, sweetheart, do you want me to pull up all the way?”

The lamps leading up to the court he lived on were so dim, but the two pedestal lights at the start of the front door walkway were loud and bright. Jaemin could see them before he opened his eyes, laying on his skin in hard-water scrapes.

Yuqi inched forward along the curbside where the trees were. Where they were still out of sight, headlights off. One branch whispered across the top of her car. She stopped two feet from the edge of his driveway, eyes on him through the rearview mirror. Donghyuck and Ruolan were looking away, but Renjun wasn't.

“Jaemin? It’s eight fifty-six.”

Renjun squeezed his thigh once then let him go, and Jaemin was incredibly cold.

Jaemin fumbled for the handle, pushed the door open, grabbed his bag, and slid out of the car. His body felt too big, too long, too real. Before he closed the door, Yuqi asked, “Do you want someone to go up with you?”

“No.” It was a croak, gritty and fried.

He’d left his saxophone at school, but his cell was heavy in his back pocket.

He walked.

Internally, his hands were passing over his entire body, pushing at the bones that jutted out and stretching the skin to cover his aches.

Externally, he walked.

There were weeds growing out between the decorative stones upside the curb where the bushes started.

For a moment, he imagined tripping, falling, and curling up in the gutter where he’d buckle and his bones would give out. His parents would use the car in the morning and see him there, and he wouldn’t be able to explain himself because there wasn’t any sort of explanation for this kind of thing. There was just sixteen years of never-ending questions, thousands upon thousands of steps taken, breaths taken, and being grateful for being alive even as he tried to answer for why he was.

He plucked a leaf off the flowers at the entrance as he pushed the walkway gate open, soundless even as his body crashed white noise in his ears and his fingertips stained with dying greenery.

The door was unlocked.

“I’m home,” he whispered to a dark house and closed the door behind him.

Shoes off, straightened, bag cutting into his fingers, almost stumbling on the entrance rug, and not a single light on.

He locked the door, turning the knob so gradually that when the deadbolt hit wood, there was nothing.

He saw his hands for the first time in hours.

They were so white despite hours under the sun, shaking so badly, the tendons moving like paperclip wires. He needed to cut his nails. He needed to be blind.

The smell of home wouldn’t be something he could ever explain for the life of him, but he had it memorized. Every shape, corner, jutting edge, lip, texture, gloss, the lights on timers, the technology in the far rooms that dozed in inhales and exhales, and every step that creaked was written in his body like a prayer stuffed in the pillows on his bed that he’d wished a thousand times would just suffocate him and leave him gone in the morning.

The stairs didn’t creak, because he knew them.

He crawled up on his fingertips and toes with his bag cinched against his back, tracing the gaps in the double doors to his parents’ bedroom that were dark and empty. He kept his mouth and nose open, breathing so panicked as to be slow and silent. He looked at the top floor before picking out the sections of the floor that were safe, and he stood before his door with his skin prickling, afraid.

His bedroom was his. Out of the entire house, it was the only space that was his, but even still, it was only barely. Something could be a haven and still be suffocating.

Jaemin opened his door.

Everything was untouched. The door to his bathroom was open and so were the sliding doors of his closet, but everything was how he remembered leaving it otherwise, and there was no one sitting on his bed or leaning against a wall.

He dropped his bag next to his bookcase and closed his door behind him.

Carefully, he opened every drawer and silently closed them. He brushed his hands through the clothes in his closet and peeled back the sheets on his bed only to fold them back over and, stripped of his shorts and in a traded-out shirt, lie atop them.

A shower would be too loud.

His phone, plugged in on his bedside table, came alive, but he flipped it down, curled up on his side, and breathed into his fingers. The heat of his breath wound damp around his thin bones and muscles.

* * *

_You couldn’t even take a shower? You come back here and get your sheets dirty like that? What are you, an orphan?_

_I notice you haven’t done your chores in days. It’s almost like I have to remind you every single goddamn time._

_Your behavior last night was beyond unacceptable. Don’t you think people have real problems to worry about instead of immature brats who think they’re suffering more than everyone else? You have a problem, Jaemin, and your attention-seeking has gone too far._

* * *

“Morning,” Jaemin said, frozen in the entryway to the kitchen as his dad rinsed his plate in the sink.

“Breakfast is on the stovetop” was the response Jaemin got.

His father moved past him after drying his hands, the movement shivering against the dampness of the shower Jaemin rushed.

“Where’s mom?”

“Running. Clean up after you’re done.”

Jaemin swallowed the pain in his throat and said, “Okay.” even as his dad was five feet away already.

For seconds upon seconds after the door to the office rattled closed, he couldn’t move. Then he blinked tears onto the backs of his hands as he collected lukewarm scrambled eggs and vegetables out of the frying pan.

He sat at the kitchen table.

Morning drifted past the open shutters and reflected off the pool.

He tried to eat, phone sweaty in his left hand where he rested it against his thigh. His fingers twisted and pinched around his fork, and he looked at his plate when he heard the front door open.

Even when he heard her enter the kitchen, he couldn’t look up.

“Good morning, Jaemin.”

“Morning.”

“Did you get back before curfew?”

He nodded, trying to hold back the strain in his throat that was hardening like cement. His eggs were pale and wet.

“You have chores to do today. You missed a few.”

He didn’t move.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes. Can I see my friends today?”

“After your chores.”

That was it. That was all. She took a glass of water and said nothing more before disappearing back upstairs.

* * *

**From: Mark oppa**

_please respond_

**To: Mark oppa**

_I’m ok._

* * *

His parents didn’t speak a word to him while he did his chores. He didn’t even see his dad, who stuck to the office, and his mom wasn’t even looking at Jaemin the single time he accidentally glanced her way.

Being ignored wasn’t new for him, but this particular brand of it was different. It was like everything had been scrubbed clean while he’d had his back turned, and now he was left questioning if he said what he had, did what he had, lived what he’d had.

* * *

He left the house at one o’clock and walked two miles to the park, crossed the entire baseball field, and sat in the shade that sloped up into trees and bricked-off houses. There was a little boy playing baseball with his mother over on the sand, but his bat was too small to hit it far enough to endanger Jaemin.

Bending over his crossed legs, he knotted his hands at the back of his neck, closed his eyes, and did not move until the sun hit his knees and burned against his Levi’s.

* * *

**To: ** ❀✿ ** Yuqi ** ✿❀

_Do your parents hire 16yrolds?_

**From: ** ❀✿ ** Yuqi ** ✿❀

_They’d hire you Jaemin._

_Happy to hear from you. Can you message xx for me?_

Guilt leaned down on him.

**To: Xuxixo**

_Safe. How are you?_

**From: Xuxixo**

_i love you_

**To: Xuxixo**

_I love you too. (_ _◍_ _•ᴗ•_ _◍_ _)_ ❤

Jaemin pressed his palm to his mouth and breathed through his nose. He’d moved back into the shade, but his underarms were prickling with sweat and he felt lightheaded.

**To: :( ** **♡** **, Je-yes**

_Thinking of you~ ( _ ु _•_ _⌄_ _• )_ ✧ ♡

**From: Je-yes**

_Explains my allergies_

**From: :( ** **♡**

_I laughed but hyucks judging me for it_

**From: Je-yes**

_^^_

**From: :( ** **♡**

_its a taken day for me but if u two want to hang out u should_

**To: :( ** **♡** **, Je-yes**

_I think I need to be alone_

**From: :( ** **♡**

_you’re sure?_

**To: :( ** **♡** **, Je-yes**

_think so_

**From: Je-yes**

_You’ll let us know?_

**To: :( ** **♡** **, Je-yes**

_Yes._

_Excited to see you guys tomorrow! ._ ﾟ☆ _(_ ノ＾ ∇ ＾ _)_ ノ☆ ﾟ _._

_Say bye to Hyuckie for me!_

**From: :( ** **♡**

_will do ♥_

**From: Je-yes**

_Hotpot next weekend_

**To: :( ** **♡** **, Je-yes**

_Perfect~_

Privately, Jeno messaged him.

**From: Je-yes**

_can I tell jisung and chenle that you’re okay?_

**To: Je-yes**

_Mhm~!_

**From: Je-yes**

_[image]_

_from dad_

_(mine)_

Jaemin had to laugh. The picture was of a napkin, by the looks of it, doodled over in ink pen. There was an inaccurately-rendered saxophone with a “HAVE A NICE DAY JAEMIN” blaring out of its curved bell with stars and music notes.

**From: Je-yes**

_I asked him to_

**To: Je-yes**

_Tell him thank you for me._

Even as he ached and his organs felt too heavy to bear, he had a lot to look forward to. That was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe just 2–3 more chapters. Thank you for everything. We're so near the end, and I am so grateful for every single one of you who have read and commented and loved this story from a distance. Writing it is worth it alone, but you guys really motivated me to see it through. For that, I can't thank you enough.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
[curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   



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